Walgreens CEO, Walgreens CFO and Health Care Reform: An Update

Walgreens, the giant $60 billion national drug retailer, revealed a business model that embraces President Obama's Heath Care Reform initiative. Walgreens CEO Gregory Wasson, Walgreens Executive Vice President and CFO Wade Miquelon, and several other executives present at it's November 4th Analyst Day, mentioned Heath Care Reform or said that the production business systems of Walgreens itself were ready to handle the increased load of an anticipated 32 million new participants in the American health care provider system.

Now, this blogger found a July 9, 2009 Fast Company article entitled Why Walgreens Is Building Its Own Universal Health Care System. The article's author, Zachary Wilson, reports that Walgreens Health and Wellness is positioned to be a provider for the new health care load that's anticipated. Walgreens' Wesson said "What it's really about is, it's an incredible way for us to leverage our existing footprint."

That "footprint" consists of almost 7,000 retailers nationwide, 68 percent of which lives within 5 miles of a Walgreens, and 6 million people walk into them each day.

Thus, Walgreens had anticipated the passage of Health Care Reform, and positioned its operations to be ready for it.