The Health Care stories just keep coming! A little over a year ago, Walmart announced that they would open several hundred walk in health clinics in their stores. They touted this as part of a solution to our health care crisis in the US. If you haven't noticed a walk in clinic popping up in your local store, that's because the plan tanked. The company who was supposed to open clinics in Walmart stores instead closed their existing clinics and walked away from Walmart. Today, Walmart only has 33 clinics (down from 78 in the beginning of '08) and is now looking to build that number back up.

Of course this is part of Walmart's PR push to get their name associated with 'health care' in a positive light after taking years of flack for not offering their associates quality affordable health coverage (and of course, to make a lot of money). Walk in clinics fit right in with Walmart's low price model too, but many see clinics as a limited solution. They can only treat specific kinds of ailments, and, like Walmart's mail order, many worry about the quality and continuity of care patients will get.

Here's what the New York Times has to say about Walmart's renewed efforts to establish walk in clinics:

Wal-Mart’s medical clinics are coming out of rehab.

Early last year, the company spoke of having 400 walk-in clinics by 2010. But later in 2008, that plan went into reverse. Of the 78 clinics Wal-Mart had in operation at the beginning of 2008, all but 17 were closed.

Now it is rebuilding that business, this time largely in partnership with hospitals.

Originally, H. Lee Scott Jr., the Wal-Mart chief executive who retired this year, had assigned a big role for the clinic project to RediClinic, a privately held company backed by Steve Case, the AOL co-founder. But last December RediClinic, citing the poor economy, abruptly shut down its 15 Wal-Mart centers.