Cat cuts deal with Walgreen

In an effort to control the costs of prescription drugs for it’s employees, Caterpillar negotiated a deal with the drug store chain Walgreen. Alas most of the story is behind the Wall Street Journal’s subscription firewall, but perhaps you can find it in yesterday’s edition of the newspaper.

This certainly makes sense as Caterpillar employs nearly 60,000 people. But just imagine if the Associated General Contractors, the Associated Builders and Contractors, the National Association of Homebuilders and all the other major construction associations pooled their members’ purchasing power and went to say, CVS, with their 7.2 million construction worker employees.  Or better yet, just put the business of those 7.2 million potential customers up for bid.