WEA Trust Demands that Others Compete.

This made me chuckle a little. 

In what could signal the start of a wider battle, Walgreen Co. has stopped filling prescriptions for about 100,000 people covered by four CVS Caremark Corp. benefit plans, outraging some people who say they are captives of a corporate strategy.

[...]

“This was a deliberate selection of hostages by Walgreens,” said Fred Evert, president of WEA Trust, which insures many Wisconsin public school employees and was cut off by Walgreens. “It wasn’t random.”

He said about 40,000 of his organization’s members must now find new pharmacies because they cannot use Walgreens.

“Walgreens never told us” of its plans to stop honoring CVS Caremark’s benefit plan, Evert said. He said he believed his group was chosen to lose its coverage in part because Walgreens faces little competition from CVS pharmacies in Wisconsin. CVS, a pharmacy chain and major competitor for Walgreens, acquired Caremark in the spring.

Sheesh, talk about your overheated rhetoric.  OH NO!  THEIR MEMBERS WILL HAVE TO USE A DIFFERENT PHARMACY!  THEY’RE HOSTAGES!!!

Give me a break.

But what’s more funny is that it’s WEA Trust who is decrying that the lack of competition for Walgreens is the reason that Walgreens gave them them the shaft.  This is the same WEA Trust that provides health coverage to the vast majority of Wisconsin public school teachers because the union contracts forbid the district from using a competitor.  This is the same WEA Trust that is owned by WEAC, the state teachers’ union.  You know, the teachers union that screams every time someone tries to introduce some competition into public education in the form of vouchers and such.  Do you think they get the irony?