California Will Not Renew Pharma Contract for California’s Prison System

In the first step of an “exhaustive review” of all contracts between Walgreens and the state of California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday that California will not renew a $54 million contract by which Walgreens delivers pharmacy services to inmates in California’s prison system. The contract was set to renew on May 1, 2023.

“This is an attempt to call the question ‘Which side are you on? Whose side are you on?” Newsom said in an interview with POLITICO ahead of the announcement. “Are you going to just cower in the face of bullies? Are you going to just roll over?”

Gov. Newsom stresses that he intends to review every contract the state of California has with Walgreens. Some may require legislative action to replace Walgreens with another supplier.

In an issue that AOC raised regarding Walgreens, NPR reports that California “might try to use its public health insurance plans - like the Obamacare exchange plans, Medicaid, insurance for state employees - to make those plan not contract with Walgreens. That would mean people with those plans wouldn't be able to get any of their medications filled through Walgreens.”

Such an action would be supremely complicated and slow to implement. But the fourth largest economy in the world — the state of California — could probably bankrupt Walgreens if it decided to do so.

Meanwhile CEO Brewer has big plans to put Walgreens into Medicare-supported health care facilities — new ways for Walgreens to make money from the federal government — OUR tax dollars.

Why Did Walgreens Fly Solo?

We reiterate, why Walgreens is the only major retailer to have answered the red-state letters — as opposed to watching the landscape develop with fellow competitors — may prove to be a massive mistake in Brewer’s young Walgreens portfolio of CEO decisions and achievements.

Note that the actual attorneys general letter from red states was sent to Danielle Gray, Executive Vice President Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. in Deerfield, Illinois.

AOC will continue to hold Rosalind Brewer responsible as CEO of Walgreens in this story that becomes worse each day. But we will also expand our reporting to include the names of other key executives involved in this travesty of justice against American women.

It is impossible that the high-ranking women of the executive suite of Walgreens are unaware of the massive fight underway in America over abortion rights.

No one AOC knows is asking Walgreens to take any illegal action against red states. But to watch these high-ranking female Walgreens business leaders bow — literally capitulate — to red state attorneys general wielding power that they do not actually have is a gut punch to American women.

In July 2022, the Walgreens policy of allowing team members to refuse to sell contraceptives, including condoms, to customers on moral grounds aroused considerable online ire. So Brewer had to know that in bowing to red state demands beyond what was legally required in dispensing mifepristone where abortion is legal was certain to unleash a tornado of public criticism.

WSJ writes that both CVS and Rite Aid [sold in a split transaction in 2018 to Walgreens and grocery store giant Albertsons] have issued statements that they are monitoring the legal landscape constantly before issuing any detailed statements. Both companies say they do intend to dispense the abortion pills where legal within the individual state.

Note that Walgreens issued a statement on Monday that sought to clarify their intention to sell the abortion pill based on the laws in place in the state, implying that they would follow the laws in the state and the state constituton, and not the instructions of the attorney general if they were at odds with state laws.

States involved include Alaska, Iowa, Kansas and Montana. A Los Angeles Times March 8, 2023 op-ed argues that abortion is legal in half of the 21 states that received the Walgreens letter demanding that they desist in selling abortion pills.

Alaska Legislators Tell Walgreens to Ignore Their Attorney General

On March 7, Alaska legislators urged Walgreens leadership to reconsider its decision not to sell the abortion drug mifepristone in the state after what they called “inappropriate pressure” from the state’s attorney general, Treg Taylor.

Nearly two dozen members of the Alaska House and Senate signed on to the letter and enclosed a copy of the state’s constitution, encouraging Walgreens CEO Rosalind Brewer to review it.

Abortion care is healthcare. Walgreens’ primary concern should be providing healthcare to American women. AOC understands that Walgreens is not alone in allowing team members with religious beliefs against birth control to refuse to sell it at Walgreens. CVS has the same policy.

But for the first Black woman CEO to head a Fortune 500 and also a Fortune 100 company [Walgreens ranks #18] Rosalind Brewer to support a business decision that effectively overrode the voters of Kansas — who went to the polls in August 2022 to be certain the right to abortion remained enshrined in the state constitution — is a travesty.

All Brewer’s decision [now on hold] clarified was our original argument that the CEO has bigger fish to fry in her mind than protecting the reproductive healthcare rights of American women.

Additionally, one must question Brewer’s independence from Stefano Pessina, the chairman and largest single shareholder of Walgreens Boots Alliance. It seems unlikely that he was not intimately involved in decisions around how to handle the red states letter. ~ Anne

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