Walmart's potential impact on healthcare is far greater than creating more primary care clinics or becoming just another health plan.
The company's $4 prescription drug plan was a big winner, transforming retail prescription drug prices nationwide in less than two years and saving Walmart customers billions of dollars.
Lee Scott's public goal in 2007 of creating "2,000 clinics within five years," by 2012, might have had a similar impact had it not been for Walmart's belief that they could get there by contracting with inexperienced, start up clinics, or when that failed, by convincing local U.S. hospitals to co-brand startups under a Walmart banner.
A "new retail price" for primary care.
Walmart's unappreciated choice then was partnering with Humana--the only health insurer in the U.S. that has previously-owned and operated everything from nursing homes, to hospitals, to walk in clinics to health insurance operations.
That relationship has still yet to fulfill its transformative potential for either company. After two strikes and one ball, Walmart got another hit: recognizing that breaking healthcare costs needs to target high cost surgical and hospital procedures, not primary care. But the two battles, of course, are not mutually exclusive.
Once the company proves it can package heart surgery in the U.S. by contracting with six domestic hospitals and testing it with their own employees, they may soon apply their supply chain management skills and take on other high cost medical services, utilizing their skills with information technology, driving down prices and sourcing internationally.
As for creating a health plan, one might hope Walmart "cuts to the chase" and acquires Humana--directly or indirectly. The company could launch not only a transformative domestic plan but an international one.
Ron Hammerle is the chairman and CEO of Health Resources, Ltd. in Tampa, Florida.