Letter to the Editor: Local Is Best

After growing up “outside” of a town of 400 (on my family’s dairy farm in southwest Wisconsin), ingrained “buy local” was and is deep in my blood, even though I thought probably costs a little more, “worth it” to support my community to assure services and goods needed are here for future generations. How does medical fit into our Door County world?

Each of us hopefully acknowledge that the access to medical care in Door County, our little “city” of 9,000 population (county 25,000), local yet nationally recognized “rural” (based on population) hospital and its supporting Door County Medical Center staff. Well, superb. To keep those the best, each of us – residents or visitors (because it benefits all) – should do whatever we can to support and keep our medical local if you are able to (just because some think that “over the Brussels hill” professional or other services are better, or cheaper, doesn’t make it so). Consider how many “turns” every dollar spent here makes to provide jobs and benefits to others in our community. “Keep it local” is hopefully a mantra we all have to recognize the benefits this generates in the Door County community that we love!

So a short time ago as the cost of my prescription insulin had accelerated more than $100 a month for me (deductible and co-pay – that more than a thousand dollars a year as the drug company raised its price), regrettably told local pharmacist (and fellow attorney, and friend) Jake Blazkovec of Bay Hometown Pharmacy that didn’t think that I could continue “buy local” any longer based on conversations with both my insurer and the advisor the insurer chose (CVS), had led me to believe that I could save dollars through mail order (instead of local); Surprise! My understanding of what was told to me was simply “not true.”

The actual, and factual, was that at the point “ready to switch and implement” that alternative pushed by the insurer and its advisor was in fact more than $100 a month more than our local “home town” pharmacy filling my prescriptions. Well I know a lot of medical personnel and as I told my tale, heard time and time again how with so many others were duped too (changing from the local to what might appear to be cheaper mail order was “not true in fact”). Even if that was true wouldn’t most of us pay a little more each month to keep those dollars in the Door, have the local money turn, supporting our neighbors and friends – even supporting those in our community that we don’t know? The surprise was that our “local” Bay Hometown Pharmacy is less expensive. “Keep it local” benefits and supports the Door County community that we love, continues and supports access to the medical that each of us might need now or in the future, and kept more dollars in my pocket too. The best in the world: Door County!

Mark Jinkins

Sturgeon Bay, Wis.