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Wal-Mart Expands Offerings In $4 Prescription Drug Plan

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Thursday it is expanding its year-old program offering $4 prescriptions for generic drugs to cover 24 additional treatments.

The additions include medicines for such problems as glaucoma, attention deficit disorder, fungal infections and acne. Fertility and prescription birth control will be included at $9, compared with national average prices of as much as $30 a prescription, the Bentonville, Ark., company said.

A total of 361 products are available at Wal-Mart pharmacies through the expansion, covering most of the commonly treated medical conditions. The plan has saved shoppers more than $600 million in its first year, Wal-Mart said.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, began the program in Tampa, Fla., in September 2006, and had expanded it to 49 states by November. The program covers about 40% of prescriptions filled in the retailer’s Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and Neighborhood Market pharmacies, the company said.

Drugstore chains Walgreen Co. and CVS Caremark Corp. have faced concerns that the Wal-Mart program is driving down drug prices and stealing their market share.

While antifungal Lamisil cost an average of $337.26 one month ago, its generic equivalent, terbinafine, sells at Wal-Mart for $4 for a commonly dispensed quantity up to a 30-day supply, the company said.

Wal-Mart has also introduced a similar discount program in Puerto Rico, Mexico and Brazil, the company said.

The retailer earlier this month said it improved health-care benefits for its full- and part-time U.S. employees, including a $4 co-pay for more than 2,400 covered generic prescriptions.

Source:  The Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

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Growth of Legal Sector Lags Broader Economy; Law Schools Proliferate

David Burcham, dean of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, considered second-tier, says the school makes no guarantees to students that they will obtain jobs. He says it is problematic that big firms only interview the top of the class, “but that’s the nature of the employment market; it’s never been different.”

On the supply end, more lawyers are entering the work force, thanks in part to the accreditation of new law schools and an influx of applicants after the dot-com implosion earlier this decade. In the 2005-06 academic year, 43,883 Juris Doctor degrees were awarded, up from 37,909 for 2001-02, according to the American Bar Association. Universities are starting up more law schools in part for prestige but also because they are money makers. Costs are low compared with other graduate schools and classrooms can be large. Since 1995, the number of ABA-accredited schools increased by 11%, to 196.

Yet economic data suggest that prospects have grown bleaker for all but the top students, and now a number of law-school professors are calling for the distribution of more-accurate employment information. Incoming students are “mesmerized by what’s happening in big firms, but clueless about what’s going on in the bottom half of the profession,” says Richard Sander, a law professor at the University of California-Los Angeles who has studied the legal job market.