A Communist Has Sparked a Cheap-Medicine Frenzy All Across Chile
- Chile mayors open ‘popular’ drugstores to sell cheap medicine
- Over 90% of Chile’s pharmacy market is controlled by 3 groups
In Chile, a country where free enterprise is almost sacrosanct, a communist mayor is shaking up the system by inspiring local governments to jump into the drugstore business and offer cut-rate prices to a populace that’s grown weary of the big chain pharmacies.
Fifty-eight municipal governments have opened so-called “popular” drugstores in the past year and dozens more will follow suit in the next few months, according to the mayor, Daniel Jadue. Recoleta, the working-class neighborhood in Santiago that Jadue oversees, was the first to open one. Its discounts -- reaching as high as 78 percent when compared with the medicines sold by pharmacies controlled by the likes of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. and Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB -- proved an immediate success. Even local councils in wealthy areas that typically frown upon any state intervention now are adopting the model.