Grocery stores are competing with insurers now

It's a subscription-driven world these days, and that apparently means you can also subscribe to your pharmacy.

Yesterday, Kroger's, one of the largest grocers in the nation, said it was rolling out its own pharmacy membership club, the latest such discount program to be launched. Under the new initiative, shoppers can pay an annual fee ($36 per person or $72 per family) to get discounted prices for their drugs, which they then pay for out of pocket. The idea is that they can bypass insurance and pay on their own when it’s cheaper to do so.

Why now? The programs come as experts and patients pay more attention to the savings that can sometimes accrue by paying cash for a medication instead of a high copay. The key there is "sometimes." Whether these programs will succeed in saving consumers money over the long haul remains an open question.

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