Amazon at the intersection of US health, and a healthy US economy . . . “We're saving $500 Million!!”

Photo above - This might be AI generated art - using the prompt "Big Daddy Warbucks and Little Orphan Annie celebrate their deal to supply discount drugs to Blue Cross."
Not Shown - Jeff Bezos' new $500 million yacht, the "Koru", currently cruising in Europe.

Blue Shield California ditches CVS for Amazon and Mark Cuban's drug company | CNN Business

I promise you that – no matter what you hate - you're going to LOVE this column . . .

Amazon just hit the jackpot. Jeff Bezos must be spraying his lovely fiancé Lauren Sanchez with bottles of Cristal aboard his $500 million yacht, the Koru. Which is currently off the coast of Europe with A-list guests like Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom, and Usher. No impassioned climate change speeches are being given by these celebrities while half the world burns (Hawaii, California, Canada, Australia, Greece, Turkey, Spain, Italy . . . )

Instead, Bezos is celebrating the decision by Blue Shield of California to switch its pharmacy allegiance from CVS to Amazon (and some back-up drug company owned by Mark Cuban, famous for his Dallas Mavericks NBA team). This decision means Blue Shield will save $500 million a year. (See link above).

Anyone want to bet if this deal makes Amazon even MORE in profits than the $500 million it saves Blue Cross? Game on !!

How the heck can Bezos keep buying all this new stuff? Earlier this year it was his $500 million Koru yacht. And just this month, it was a $70 million oceanfront mansion at Indian Creek, Florida. With the biggest dock you've ever seen. Because, you know, if you have a $500 million yacht, THEN you need some place to park that thing when you're not yukking it up in Monaco, the French Riviera, or the Caribbean.

Indian Creek (Florida) is mos' def NOT an actual creek. And may not even be named after some long gone Native American tribe. It's a private island, with its own police force. A man-made island. The kind of island which oil sheiks are building in Bahrain and Qatar. And which the Chinese navy is building all over the Pacific. Somebody sure doesn't believe in rising sea levels, eh?

Back to the Blue Cross drug deal with Amazon. I get it. Blue Cross wants to hold back the rising tide of drug costs in this era of . . . government inflicted double digit inflation. And saving $500 million isn't chump change. Blue Cross of California has 5 million policyholders. So that works out to something like, um . . . $2 a week savings per customer??? Well, at least it's actually SOMETHING!! It could have been zero. Sheesh . . . stop being so negative.

I'm not an Amazon hater. I have a friend who works there. She earns $18 an hour as a “picker”. Grab stuff off the shelf, scan it, and throw it in the robot truck to be taken to some other robot. She's hoping to advance up the seniority ladder, so she can work days, instead of nights and weekends. And spend more time with her 12-year-old kid. Unless a robot takes her job too. I am NOT speaking out against Amazon, her $18 an hour job, or making ends meet. Moving right along . . .

I simply don't trust the stuff which I'm tempted to order through Amazon. Most of which seems to come from China. During the pandemic (which – cough cough - came from China) someone eventually did a bona-fide chemical analysis of the “hand sanitizers” offered for sale at the Amazon website. More than 100 varieties. Most came from China. Most had zero ingredients with any relevance to disinfection or killing viruses. Scams. And unregulated because they are made offshore, out of sight, in a place beyond our reach. If you notify Amazon that there's a counterfeit, misrepresented, or harmful product, they will investigate, and remove it from sale. That's a good thing, of course. And those bogus hand sanitizers probably never killed anyone directly. Anyway, it's impossible for Amazon to investigate all the millions of vendors from China or other places their products come from. The law doesn't require that, even if it were possible.

China already supplies a lot of our generic drugs. And when Chinese generics show up at Rite Aid, Walgreens, or CVS, the FDA has a process to randomly test them, and take action against counterfeit and mislabeled stuff. Like they did with all that Chinese dog food containing asbestos, sold at warehouse clubs a few years ago.

But I'm not sure how this is going to work once we start ordering generic “Mxyzptlk” tabs through Amazon. They will be shipped directly from factories in Wuhan, Longdong, and Fuzhou. But remember, you'll save $2 a week, at least. Now quitcher bitchen, and watch the world burn on live television. People in Hawaii are actually swimming in the ocean amidst floating corpses. Must see TV !!

I'm just sayin' . . .