I have worked in a CVS so I can answer this first hand. The main reason is every CVS is critically understaffed to the point of danger to patients.

Beyond that systemic problem that adds delay, actually dispensing the prescription is not the rate limiting step. When you get a prescription there's a whole list of things you need to do before it can be dispensed. In no particular order:

1. Select the right drug which seems easy but the prescriber may have used an old brand name, or misspelled it, or put in something that doesn't exist.
2. Calculate days supply (easy for pills, not so much for insulin, creams, eye drops, etc.)
3. Find the correct doctor in the system
4. Find the right patient's profile and see if they really fill at your store
5. Transcribe the directions in a way that makes sense in less than ~200 characters to fit on the bottle.
6. Check to see if the patient already has another prescription on file they are in the middle of the refills for so you don't have two active prescriptions.
7. Check to see the prescription has all the required information on it to be filled based on state requirements
8. Send the finalized prescription to the patient's insurance which inevitably is rejected because of some minor issue with any of the above, or it is expired, or requires prior authorization, or they changed their name, or it is too soon, or it's not the proper moon phase.
9. Actually fill the prescription which requires finding it on the shelf which is a mess because you fill ~500 prescriptions a day
10. Scan the bottle to make sure it's the same as what you billed the insurance, but if you picked the wrong generic brand on the first step you get to start over.
11. Clean the counting tray
12. Count the pills
13. Get the right vial and label everything with the stickers, and if you need more you need to print more out but someone else has a 50 page print job ahead of you and it's out of labels
14. Answer the phone
15. Answer the drive through
16. Answer the patient at consultation
17. Answer the patient at the cash register
18. Send it to the pharmacist for review which is a huge process on it's own which requires looking for interactions, appropriate dosage, correct drug for the disease indication, and simply reviewing you got everything transcribed correctly which if it isn't you get to start all over. Plus there are 50-100 prescriptions already waiting for review.
19. Process a vaccination patient
20. Add water to a reconstitutable (powder) medication
21. If Poseidon wills it, the prescription is approved and then you get to bag it, then put it in the right spot in the bins so it can be found.

If it's a controlled substance you need the pharmacist to do about 50% of the steps above and access the safe which is a whole process. In the meantime they are on the phone with a doctor or some insurance trying to get something clarified or approved. Or compounding someone's diaper cream. Or doing vaccinations. Or counseling someone on their antibiotic. Some drugs have mandatory monitoring programs you have to enter information from the doctor before they can be dispensed. Some drugs require a dosage syringe, or intramuscular syringes, or needle tips.

Suffice it to to say it is an involved process.

On my 8th birthday my dad took a couple friends and I out to dinner and we stopped to buy a video game. My friends and I were arguing about what to get and my dad came by a couple times to get us to hurry up. Finally he said we had to make a decision and ushered us up to the cashier.

As soon as the cashier started to talk a truck off the highway that was above the store crashed through the side wall of the shop with enough speed to hit through every aisle and collapse all the shelving to the back as well as ripping down the ceiling. The guy was covered in blood and slumped over the wheel. No one was hurt in the store luckily, but we all would have been killed if we argued any longer in that aisle. My dad just got us into the car and we drove home. Afterward my dad would just downplay it whenever I would bring it up.

hear ye

I got access to a really nice VR system through work and binged through Half Life Alyx. I was in a room that was large enough to walk around in, but for larger moves you use the controller to teleport a short distance. Also you can gravity attract items within a few yards with your gloves.

After playing the first time I went to cook dinner and got embarrassingly frustrated when I tried to summon a spoon with a hand gesture.

I played Like a Dragon with no background and it was a great experience. Really wacky in a satisfying way. Only grievance is there is ~10 hours of cut scenes to beat the game.

When I was in secondary school I had to fill out a form over the summer to be allowed to leave early for some school activities. The form required a coach or teacher's signature. Since it was the summer, I had no contact with any faculty so I had my parents call the coach who told me to sign the form for him, which I did and I turned it in. Unfortunately, that coach left before the beginning of the year so when school started I was called to the principal's office and accused of forging his signature. I told the principal the coach told me to, so it wasn't a forgery, I was signing on his behalf, and I even put that on the form. He ended up calling the coach and he even confirmed but at that point he didn't want to back down and still denied the request.

After I left the two older ladies that ran the office found me and told me they just approved it after he left for the day and he would never know. They were super nice and told me they were proud of me for sticking up for myself. As a barely out of primary school kid it was really intimidating to be yelled at by an adult but I felt so vindicated when they recognized the inequity of the situation and helped me.

That principal ended up only lasting a year too.

Highly recommend Cassette Beasts. It's a monster battler but you can freely swap and collect moves and the level of your monsters are based on your character level and not the level you obtained it. Plus all the moves have affixes like in Diablo that significantly change their use or potency.

The sum of all that means you are always trying out new monsters and move sets, some of which are entirely broken. Great game.

Justified hate for EA aside, I really don't mind unobtrusive product placement in games or media. Take The Boys for example, they have heavy product placement in the show (Fresca, Kraken rum, Adidas, etc.) but it didn't detract from the narrative and I think the casual viewer didn't even notice it.

I have no faith whatsoever EA will be able to keep themselves from hamfisting ads in the player's face, but I am not categorically against the idea.

Zolgemsma is a modified version of adeno associated virus and has to be grown under specific conditions. It costs $500k-$1m per production.. It's also a one time injection that functionally cures the person of the disease. There are a couple other options but for comparison, the other therapeutic is Spinraza which is an intermittent intrathecal infusion which is $805,000 for the first year of therapy and $380,000 per year thereafter for the rest of your life.

To be clear, I think we should bear the actual costs of research, development, and manufacture as a society and not profiteer off the sick, but there are some contributory reasons for the price.

It sounds odd but there was a Supreme Court about it. Essentially someone claimed they shouldn't have to pay taxes on the profits of crime and the Court ruled they did. So they had to create a way for people to do that. For what it is worth, the 5th amendment protects you from incriminating yourself, so you are allowed to decline to provide the details of where the money came from, but it's a bit like paying your parents for something you broke and then just not telling them what it is, and then expecting them not to look around the house.

“it would be an extreme if not an extravagant application of the Fifth Amendment to say that it authorized a man to refuse to state the amount of his income because it had been made in crime. … He could not draw a conjurer’s circle around the whole matter by his own declaration that to write any word upon the government blank would bring him into danger of the law.” .... "It is urged, that, if a return were made, the defendant [Sullivan] would be entitled to deduct illegal expenses, such as bribery. This by no means follows, but it will be time enough to consider the question when a taxpayer has the temerity to raise it.”

United States v. Sullivan, 274 U.S. 259 (1927)

The HIPAA Privacy Rule exception for law enforcement purposes, 45 CFR § 164.512(f), permits a covered entity (generally, healthcare providers, health plans and their business associates) to disclose PHI to law enforcement officials without patient authorization under certain circumstances.

Those pharmacies also have this exception listed in their Privacy Policy. I don't like it either, but it is legal.

Ender 3 3d printer about 6 years ago. I bought it used for $100 on a whim with no knowledge on how to use one. Now it's the most useful tool in my house. Need a slightly bigger hollow wall anchor? You can print one. Custom desk organizer? Print one. Name plates for a dinner party. Stamp to impress into wax or leather. Fantasy scatter terrain.

There is certainly a learning curve but if you can get proficient you can make countless helpful things that would would not be able to buy.