Tag: profits

Information Regarding Walgreens, Express Scripts and Tricare

On By Michel McDonaldIn AdLeave a comment

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Walgreens

I have been going to Walgreens ever since we moved to Bakersfield in 2000.  What I didn’t know was that Walgreens and Express Scripts are in the middle of a dispute.  Apparently over the last year, Walgreens has been negotiating for a new contract for 2012, but they were not successful.  What does that mean for you?  It means that if you are a part of the Tricare network, you will not be able to fill your prescriptions at Walgreens, which is totally unfair, not to mention uncool.

If you are unaware of who Tricare is, which I was until now, they are for military personnel.  How does this affect military?  Well, it makes getting your prescriptions difficult if you are constantly moving around because of the military.  As long as you are a member of Walgreens, you can go to any Walgreens to fill your prescriptions.  I’m sure it’s the same for other pharmacies, but if you are used to and loyal to Walgreens, you won’t like this change.

Express Scripts is saying that you will not have to pay more for your prescriptions through them, but that just isn’t true because they will just raise their prices.  It’s the same rule as movie theaters and airport food, if you are forced to buy it through them, they will raise their prices.  They want you to get your medicine directly through them and they are just the middle man in this whole thing.  They are doubling their profits which is unfair to Walgreens.  If they raise their prices, then they would more than double their profits and who loses in all of this?  Not just Walgreens, but you do too.

If you are part of the Tricare network then you are being affected by this, if not then you don’t have to worry about anything.  If you are affected, join the Prescription Savings Club at Walgreens and cut out the middle man.  Why should you have to put up with unfair practices by Express Scripts?  Life is difficult as it is, there is no reason that we as a society should have to pander to these 1% fat cats.

Raise your voice in this issue by contacting the local media and telling them how pissed off you are.  Follow Walgreens on Twitter and become a fan of Walgreens on Facebook and let them know that you still support them.

We as a society are who pay these fat cats their salaries, so if we (and I don’t mean me because I don’t have Tricare) don’t stand up for what we believe in, then they will just get richer and we will get poorer.  Let them know you aren’t going to take their abuse by boycotting them and going directly to Walgreens.  They will get the message when their profits are no longer doubling, and in fact decreasing and they will change their practice.  You have a voice, use it!

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Publishing My Book

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBookLeave a comment

I spent this summer writing my life story into a 289 page e-book.  It took a lot of time to write and it has taken even longer to edit because I am not what most would consider to be a writer.  I barely manage writing a blog, I have a difficult enough time thinking of what to write in a greeting card.

I have already copyrighted (pending) my book (title and unedited contents) so that when I am ready to publish it, I won’t have to worry about waiting for the copyright to kick in.

I have already signed up with Amazon and Barnes & Noble as a self publisher, which was so easy that anyone can do it.  I also wanted to sign up on the Rainbow Ebook website as a self publisher because I want to support them as an e-book store.  It’s nice to give back to my community in any way that I can.

As soon as it is completely edited, I will publish it and start advertising and promoting via here, twitter, Facebook, my space and anywhere else that I can advertise it for free.  I may even pay gay and gay friendly bloggers to advertise it for me.

I am not looking to get rich on this book, in fact I mean to do the opposite.  I can only make so much money per year on top of my disability so I can’t get rich off of it.  I am only going to sell it for $6.99 so that I only profit a few dollars from the sale of each book and 10% of those profits will go to charity.  10% from Amazon, B&N and Rainbow Ebooks combined will be split up to go to the Human Rights Campaign, ChildHelp.org and Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors fund.

My book will hopefully raise awareness to so many issues in our society about the way children are being raised to be as abusive, racist and bigoted as the parents who are raising them.  I feel it’s important not just to tell my story about the trauma I went through, but hope that it will help parents to change their hateful ways and views and know what they are doing to their children when they raise them full of so much hatred.

I wanted to be able to publish it before Christmas but then I got to thinking that it’s not the kind of thing you want to read during a happy time of year.  Instead, I will probably publish it after Christmas or maybe after New Years.  Keep in mind that it is still being edited so it is possible that I won’t have it ready to publish until January.

So until then…

Update: I signed up for the free trial of Grammarly and was shocked to see that they raised the price from $20 to $70.  I thought that I would just go ahead and do the trial and get it done as quick as I could but it was catching too many errors that weren’t even errors.  So screw that, if my grammar checker in Open Office doesn’t show me those errors then they aren’t errors in my opinion.  I will read it one more time and fix any errors I think need to be fixed and then publish it when my copyright goes through or January like I said before.