Values Based Health Services: DMC pharmacy

At http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/15/
AR2008061502180.html?wpisrc=newsletter you can see a Washington Post article by Rob Stein concerning the planned opening of DMC Pharmacy in Virginia. What makes it newsworthy is that prescriptions for contraceptions will not be filled because of the pharmacy's religious adherence to the idea of not interfering with procreation.

Whether a person agrees with the values being put forth by the Virginia pharmacy is not the issue as much as how those values will interfere with individual access to legal prescriptions in the US. Consumers should NOT be up in arms about this pharmacy. After all, there are other places to get prescriptions. And there is an upside. In a health services environment that has put forth PROFIT ahead of everything else, maybe standing up for values is not a bad thing. On the other hand, before anyone applauds the values being put forth by DMC Pharmacy, it would be interesting to note whether the pharmacy will fill prescriptions that are paid for by health insurance companies that help consumers pay for contraception whether surgical or oral. Then the company might seem a little less noble if it accepts prescriptions and fills prescriptions and files for reimbursement from companies that pay for abortions or the morning after pill.

Values do have a place in medical services. Our current seemingly neutral commitment to profit has resulted in values that no individual would proudly pronounce as his own during a friendly conversation. Can you imagine talking about the justification for putting cancer patients in a pool because you want to save money? Would your cocktail party be the sophisticated soiree you anticipated if you discussed how you were using health savings accounts as another means of saving a few thou tax free while middle class consumers struggling to pay for health insurance have to wonder whether they will be bankrupted by illness? And physicians writing their publications about caring for patients, would it be attractive to learn that they're sending patients for test after test simply to cover their own butts (defensive medicine)?

We are already in a values based health insurance environment, we simply disguise it with the simplistic notion that anything goes in the run for profit. So the biggest congratulations to DMC Pharmacy...I don't agree with it, but I support it in standing up for its values as long as it also rejects health insurance reimbursements from health insurers that assist consumers in paying for contraception (after all, otherwise the hypocrisy would be noticed which means that a different VALUE would be evidenced which might not be based on religion, such as the oppression of women). Now, if health insurers and physicians would start speaking the truth...we don't care about you but we make less money if you get sick so we'll pretend that we're supporting a public policy of "health" by squeezing you out of medical services options....