We Can All Enjoy This Nice Monday Morning Pick-Me-Up!
Watch AOC box in CVS CEO David Joyner:
AOC: Mr. Joyner, you are the CEO of CVS Health, correct?
JOYNER: Correct.
AOC: And, I actually don't know how many Americans know this, but CVS Health owns Aetna, the health insurance company, correct?
JOYNER:Correct.
AOC: And CVS, which owns Aetna, also owns Oak Street Health medical clinics, correct?
JOYNER: Yes it does.
AOC: And in addition to that, they own of course, CVS Pharmacies, and CVS Health also owns CVS Caremark, the pharmacy benefit manager which helps negotiate some of these rebates and prescription prices, correct?
JOYNER: That's correct.
AOC: And CVS Caremark processes nearly 30% of all prescriptions in a given year. And so in other words, CVS Caremark helps determine the prices that patients pay for a third of all prescriptions in the U.S.
In fact, I was following one of CVS’ recent- one of CVS’s investor calls where they really laid out quite clearly what this means if you are a patient. This is what's known as a “captive strategy.”
And CVS in the investor call used the example themselves of a patient known as Kate. Kate has an Aetna health insurance plan, right here and which is owned by CVS Health. She then goes to a CVS pharmacy.