Wal-Mart Dabbles in Healthcare

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Okay, well maybe dabble isn’t a good word, but Wal-Mart has been allowing medical clinics on premise to dispense minor healthcare for a while.  And now it is ramping up this business practice with plans to have 400 store clinics up and running by 2010.
 
This is a very interesting notion, but one that makes me a little uncomfortable and I suspect will make shoppers as well.  If someone is shot in the parking lot, where will they go? To the clinic. Want less drama? How about a parade of sniffling, sneezing, cold-soar be-spotted people wait in on line to get into the clinic. Or shopping in the store while they await their number to be called. “Attention, sick Wal-Mart shoppers?” How about insurance-less people who just need a little aspirin and warmth in the middle of winter?
 
Then of course, there is always the litigation associated with dispensing healthcare. Wal-Mart doesn’t need this type of headache. Retail medicine’s time may have come thanks to the overcrowding of hospital emergency departments, but selling lawnmowers, tires and clothing under the same roof as in-patient care is a little scary.
 
Hillary? Help please.