The owner of Capitol Hill’s Grubb’s pharmacy – which delivers drugs to lawmakers daily – recently shared some of his concerns about the business to STAT news.
‘At first it’s cool, and then you realize, I’m filling some drugs that are for some pretty serious health problems as well. And these are the people that are running the country,’ said pharmacist-turned-owner Mike Kim, ticking off ailments including Alzheimer’s and diabetes.
‘It makes you kind of sit back and say, “Wow, they’re making the highest laws of the land and they might not even remember what happened yesterday,”‘ he added.
After Kim’s comments came under assault on Twitter he revised his remarks saying they were ‘hypothetical.’
The owner of Grubb’s pharmacy on Capitol Hill noted how his clients are ‘running the country’ and have some ‘serious health problems as well,’ including Alzheimer’s and diabetes – a comment he later said was ‘hypothetical’
Grubb’s pharmacy supplies Capitol Hill with lawmakers’ prescription drugs, a relationship the business has had with Congress for at least 20 years
‘I was speaking very broadly about disease states that the general American population have and that it also applies to everyone including members of the U.S. House and Senate since they are people just like you and I,’ he said.
He added, ‘My pharmacy is in a very unique location on Capitol Hill and fortunate to have the opportunity to service the U.S. Capitol.’
That proximity has led to Grubb’s being the pharmaceutical provider of lawmakers for decades, providing daily deliveries to Capitol Hill, a nice perk for House and Senate members.
Kim knows that the relationship goes back as far as at least 1997, when he became a part-time employee at Grubb’s while still a student at Howard University, but it likely stretched longer.
In a 1992 review of the Office of Attending Physician – the Hill’s medical clinic that’s strictly off limits to reporters – a recommendation was made for lawmakers to obtain their prescriptions through private pharmacies and pay for them themselves.
That’s the office the drugs arrive at now – as door-to-door deliveries from Grubb’s to individual Congressional officers were barred post 9/11.
The OTP is staffed by Navy doctors and lawmakers get access for just $600 a year, STAT noted.
Kim says his congressional clients don’t get special treatment or discounts, though they may get their pills faster than other customers thanks to proximity.
The Capitol dome can be seen from the windows at Grubb’s.
‘The Capitol kind of takes somewhat of a precedence just because of who we’re servicing,’ Kim told STAT.
‘It’s definitely a special arrangement that no other pharmacy in the country can say that they have,’ he continued. ‘In other states, [a community pharmacy] may fill prescriptions from maybe one or two members, but this location, you’re getting like every member for all across the country,’ he continued.
‘It’s very cool.’