At a meeting last week of the Walgreen's Boots Alliance shareholders, a company executive vowed to work with the Trump administration to dismantle and replace former President Obama's Affordable care Act with a 'free-market alternative'.

Justin Danhoff with the National Center for Public Policy Research and the Free Enterprise Project said he personally attended the shareholders meeting last week in New York City.

"I talked with the management of Walgreen's about their relationship to the American healthcare system and how they can help improve it going forward,"  Danhoff said. "There's a real juxtaposition between where Walgreen's has been and where the country is going. As Obamacare became law, Walgreen's was one of the bigger corporate promoters, but interestingly, Walgreen's dumped 160,000 of its employees off of their healthcare plans, in part, due to the high compliance costs of Obamacare, and put them on a separate private exchange. So, you have a company that promotes the Affordable Care Act to its customers, but knows the ill effect that it actually has."

Danhoff asked the management to now work with the Trump administration to find a better way to provide health care.

"I asked them, can you work with President Trump on a more patient-focused healthcare system that uses competition to help hold down costs," he said. "To my surprise, the executive chairman of Walgreen's, James Skinner, said yes, it would very much behoove the company to work with the Trump administration going forward, and that's a good first step."

Danhoff said he hopes that having Walgreen's on board with changes in health care will motivate other companies to follow suit.

"I hope that many other corporations that worked to implement Obama Care will now work in its unraveling, to help the American people have a better healthcare system," he said.

"Following the meeting," Danhof added, "Walgreens spokesman Michael Polzin informed me that the company has continued to subsidize the employee's health insurance plans at the same rate as before.  He also confirmed that, going forward, the company has every intention of maintaining the same subsidy percentages."

There are two Walgreen's Pharmacies in Missoula.

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