A Raw Deal

Since 1879, Albright and Raw Rexall Drugs has been the drugstore for downtown Corvallis. As the town grew and other pharmacies moved into the region, Albright and Raw still offered something the chains couldn't -- service straight out of an earlier era, with just the right amount of friendly chitchat, gifts to browse while your prescriptions were being filled (okay, so you have to like all things Precious Moments), and even a miniature post office substation right there in the store, a convenient way to avoid the ever-present line at the main post office a few blocks away.

But thanks to typical government efficiency (insert sarcastic sneer), Albright and Raw will be dropping the "Drugs" from its name and its practice. The pharmacy portion of the business has been sold to the downtown Safeway, where, I suppose, you can browse rows of Twinkies and Doritos while waiting for your meds.

It seems this wonderful new Medicare D benefit that so traumatized senior citizens during the initial implementation is now traumatizing small mom-and-pop pharmacies who can't front thousands of dollars of medications to customers without going out of business. With the government taking a whopping three months to reimburse the pharmacy for prescriptions already sold, the owners had no choice but to stop offering us that wonderful, small town service.

Fortunately, the store will still exist as a gift shop, and the new 50's style soda counter is a fun stop for kids too young to remember what real cherry Cokes tasted like. But this trend will likely continue. Will Rice's Pharmacy be next? I hope not. Recently, a friend of mine found a prescription at Rice's that cost half as much as the same prescription cost at Rite-Aid, another monolithic concrete cube full of employees more dour than the DMV.