Something Not Quite Right

Yesterday I, along with the other four people in my family, went to the Target minute clinic to get our sore throats checked out.  As it turns out we are all fine with no measureable illness. What was amazing about the trip to the retail doc was that it didn’t cost anything. My insurance has a co-pay of zero dollars for this type of visit.  Had we gone to an urgent care we would have paid $25 each.  Considering that the actual cost of the visit is significantly higher than $25 it still would have been a really good deal. 

Back at target today we were picking up some basket filling provisions and stopped in one of the pharmacy aisles.  As my wife looked for an out of stock box I couldn’t help notice a situation at the pharmacy counter.  The pharmacy tech was explaining the cost of several prescriptions to an elderly woman. It became clear that the woman was trying to figure out how she would pay for her prescriptions and the tech was patiently going over the options for buying some of the prescriptions now and some others later. 

My mind vacillated between sadness and wondering if there was anything I could do.  I remembered the rare cash in my wallet and considered offering it to offset the cost of the medicines but knew it wouldn’t be enough to cover even one of the prescriptions.  My indecisiveness determined my course of action and in the end I did nothing. Nothing, that is, except for seeing something that is reported all of the time but that I have never had any firsthand experience with. Nothing but recognizing that something wasn’t right and wondering: What would be?