Reform/Salaries.

I went to my uncle's cabin over Labor Day weekend to hang out at the lake and relax. My favorite part about hanging out with this certain family is that they're all staunchly republican, but occasionally they can see things from a different point of view, like mine, for example. My parents are both English teachers at the high school I graduated from, and I was raised as a democrat, although I am not exactly political. All politicians are corrupt in some way, shape, or form. Granted, it comes with the territory. I'm not here to bash any politicians, I'm just saying that it's not my type of thing. I like to be honest with people, which is probably why a lot of people think I'm an asshole.

My cousin asked me an interesting question as we were watching a town hall meeting where the senator was actually yelling at an average Joe in the audience for not following protocol and yelling obscenities. It was awesome. My cousin asked me what this health care reform was going to do to my job outlook. I told him absolutely nothing, people will always need their drugs, that will never change. He then asked me about my pay, if my salary would go down because of this reform.

Now that's an interesting question. I really didn't know what to say. I told him I would think about it and get back to him. I've done a little thinking, and I can honestly say that I think it won't affect our salaries one way or the other. The way I see it, it doesn't matter where the pharmacy's income comes from, that income is going to remain the same, or go up. I say go up because I've never had to call the Medicare or Medicaid office because they weren't paying enough on a claim. I've had to do that with private insurance claims. Erythromycin Ophthalmic ointment is the latest and greatest of these bang-my-head-against-the-wall calls. The price of the ointment went from $1.06 to $16.78 in the space of about 2 weeks, and Medicaid made it's adjustments, while not a single private insurance company did. They all seemed ignorant to the drug shortage, but I'm sure they'll know the minute the price goes down, and we'll be forced to unload the $16.78 ointment off our shelves at a loss.

Perhaps this is faulty reasoning. I will not even pretend to have a more than a basic knowledge of how insurance companies work and the various contracts they have with pharmacies and drug companies. If there's anyone out there who wants to shed some more light on the subject of reform and the possible effects it will have on pharmacist's salaries, I would like to hear all about it. Intelligent answers only, please.