Why CVS Quit Smoking - The New Yorker

http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/cvs-quit-smoking

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"What inspired CVS’s rhetorical shift from saving pennies to saving lives? Again, as in the sixties, a change in the law has presented businesses with an opportunity. The Affordable Care Act of 2010, which expanded Medicaid coverage and required more people to buy health insurance, has helped push down the percentage of uninsured people in the U.S. (In the second quarter of 2014, about thirteen per cent of U.S. adults were uninsured, compared with seventeen per cent at the same time last year.) There is also a shortage of primary-care doctors in the U.S. CVS—along with Walmart, Walgreens, and other retailers—is trying to take advantage of this gap. Not only does it hope to fill more prescriptions for newly insured people, but it also wants to provide people with reimbursable health-care services, like what they might get at a doctor’s office."

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