Great News! Wal-Mart Announces Support for Employer Insurance Mandate
By Susie Madrak Wednesday Jul 01, 2009 2:00pm
This is tremendous. As the largest employer in the country, their agreement will make a real difference to the congressional fight over healthcare reform. Again, an incremental step in the process, but it's a good sign:
WASHINGTON — Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, joined hands with a major labor union Tuesday to endorse the idea of requiring large companies to provide health insurance to their workers, a move that gives a boost to President Obama as he is pushing for health legislation on Capitol Hill.
“Not every business can make the same contribution, but everyone must make some contribution,” Wal-Mart’s chief executive, Michael T. Duke, wrote in a letter to White House and Congressional officials, adding that he favored “an employer mandate which is fair and broad in its coverage.”
The letter was issued jointly with Andrew W. Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents two million workers, many of them in the health care industry, and John D. Podesta, who ran Mr. Obama’s transition to the presidency and leads the Center for American Progress, a Democratic policy organization here.
But Wal-Mart’s embrace of the employer mandate may come at a price. In its letter, the company says that if Congress imposes a requirement that employers offer insurance, it must also offer a guarantee to business that health care costs will in fact be contained, perhaps through a so-called trigger mechanism that would impose reductions if certain spending targets were not met.
“We’re for an employer mandate, but we believe that it has to be accompanied by these measures that are really going to deliver on the savings,” said Leslie A. Dach, Wal-Mart’s top lobbyist, who met with Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the proposal. “If any business is going to be asked to take on an employer mandate, to face changes in the tax laws, there should be some sense that the promise of the bill to reduce health costs will actually occur.”
The employer mandate is central to Mr. Obama’s plan for expanding health coverage to the nation’s 46 million uninsured, but many companies, including Wal-Mart, have long resisted the idea. But as health legislation moves through Congress, representatives of industry are becoming increasingly convinced that they must join forces with the administration to have a seat at the negotiating table.
The trade group representing pharmaceutical companies recently promised to cut the cost of prescription drugs by $80 billion over 10 years, and Democratic officials said hospitals were close to reaching a similar agreement on cost-cutting with the Obama administration. Mr. Emanuel said Tuesday afternoon that chief executives of other companies — he did not specify which — had also expressed interest in embracing an employer mandate.
“Everybody is now trying to get their seat on the train,” Mr. Emanuel said.
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I'm going to wait a couple days to see how this plays out. I have a hard time trusting Wal-Mart. It interesting that it comes a day after Al Frankin became the 60th Demo Senator. Maybe it has nothing to do with that but who knows?
The small mom & pop stores that have far less bargaining power when it comes to insurance plans.
The U.S. Military
In a just world the mom and pops should get a break in one way or another. Even the article quotes Wal-Mart saying so,
See how it plays out. It does sound good though. That being said, Wall-Mart is bad for communities.
that regardless of a mandate to have businesses provide health insurance for their employees, the employees will still be stuck with the same rotten insurance companies!
Underinsured, lied to, told "no" constantly and so on.
For me, doing any kind of "deal" with these corporate thieves who prey on sick human beings for PROFIT is a non-starter.
Again, I say...The for-profit health insurance corporations should be torn into a thousand pieces and scattered to the wind!
Insurance companies cannot be trusted. They will try every trick possible not to pay up. Their primary objective is to make as much profit as possible at the expense of the sick and infirm. A public option should non-negotiable.
Again corporations by their nature have been proven to be sociopathic.
I don't trust Wal-Mart one bit. They don't cover their employees now, but they should because they can afford to do so. They just want to make certain that their competitors are driven out of business. Besides, I don't think we should be requiring employers to provide insurance. What we need is single payer. We need to get away from the employer based health insurance model.
Me too. When was the last time they volunteered to do anything that was good? I'm becoming such a skeptic, especially when it comes to Wal-Mart.
we'll all be working at Wal-Mart.
"Welcome to Wal-Mart, I love you man"
Before you all give any credit to Wal Mart stop and think what is in their interest. They don't do anything for the employees unless it helps their corporation. First off I know someone who works at Wal Mart and she said that many can't afford their policy. Plus its not that great. What Wal Mart is doing now is replacing full time people when the leave with part time people so they don't have to put out much. I wouldn't believe anything Wal Mart even if their tongues came notorized. I worked for them for about 2 months. I hated it and found another job. No I don't believe them. No one should. Wal Mart is out for the corporation. They are scared to death that the employees will unionize. I hope and pray they do.
before replacing them with a no benefits part timer. Sears (Sears Holding Company now) has been waging full out war on its full time employees for about 5-6 years now... ever since they came under the thumb of a hedge fund manager/activist shareholder.
They just flooded the commissioned sales floors with part timers and waited for the full timers to leave because they could no longer make a decent living.
A couple of years ago, they fired a whole shipload of full time employees at Kmart... SHC also owns Kmart... and then cynically offered them their same jobs back on a part time basis with no benefits. And it's actually gotten worse since then.
I know Walmart is supposedly the Great Satan of retailers and I don't even have a quarrel with that description on many levels, but don't ever think they're in some kind of league by themselves when it comes to screwing over rank and file employees and treating them like shit. I'm betting Sears Holding Company is at least on a par with them in that arena.
I totally agree with you. This country was alway for the people by the people, now its by the corporation and for the corporations. The america we grew up with left us long ago. It started with Ronald Reagan with he started deregulation. Those are the fact. Our representatives really don't care about us. They are only concerned what is in it for them.
"From Wal-Mart's perspective, the move is strategic. The carefully worded letter does not commit Wal-Mart to anything other than support of a bipartisan effort to reform health care."
I heard that Wal-Mart was going to get into the health care business. Could this be influencing their decision to support a mandate?
I was wondering if they were going into the health insurance business.
Connecting our health insurance to our employers makes us slaves.
Exactly what Walmart must have finally realized. It not only makes us all slaves, but will eliminate Walmart's competition (small would-be slave owners) because of the onerous cost of privately "insured" health. This just underscores how bad this proposal is. SINGLE PAYER is the only effective way to go!
http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/18/obama-doctor...
Yeah, mean while the Walton family is getting richer and richer to expand their bunker home.
is a wonderful thing for an employer. Once you're ill, or any member of your family, the pre-existing condition makes changing jobs difficult if not impossible. They own your ass then. Unless of course it's really a serious illness that's expensive to treat. Then it's recission time.
because of health issues?
. .
Why is this good news? You shouldn't have to have a job to have health care. I don't believe mandating health insurance, as is done for car insurance, is a good idea. What, is universal single payer completely off the table? Did I miss the white flag, or was that a foregone conclusion even though we, in theory, have 60 votes now? Fuck this centrist bullshit.
I think we'd be lucky to find 45 to 48 votes right now...and that would only be if Obama were pressing the issue of single payer hard.
As it stands, of course, he's basically said he's against it.
Wal Mart is cutting many jobs to even fewer hours so they are not required to offer health benefits. They can hire more people, say how great they are at adding jobs and offering health care to those who work enough hours per week. While decreasing current hours and hiring employees for fewer hours really helps no one.
Yep, I have a friend that use to work in management and said they are not replace full time people when they leave. They are replacing them with part time people. I want to know when the hell is congress going to start representing the working people in this country?
WalMart is getting rid of their full time high paid employees. My brother was given the boot by WalMart a few months ago from their distribution center near Greeley. After working there for 5-6 years and getting good performance reviews, suddenly WalMart was unhappy with his job performance. My brother is now unemployed and he will never get a job that paid that well with full benefits ever again.
I've never shopped at Walmart
Tom Tomororw's $0.02
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2009/06/30/t...
Thanks for the Tom Tomorrow strip...the guy's an absolute genius.
...he's spot on.
And they'll give you rubbing alcohol if you're coughing!
Unless I missed it, there is no statement on what sort of coverage will be involved.
Could be more folks who think they have coverage only to find it is VAPORWARE.
The Great American Bamboozlement.
Over and over again.
---
This just in:
The Gestapo Food Act, H.R. 2749, Must Be Stopped
I welcome input, I haven't studied it yet but I am deeply suspicious of ANYTHING our Congress does.
For what it's worth, this has been trending for a couple of years.
Here's USA Today from 2/7/07 reporting on Lee Scott and Andy Stern's announcement of a general agreement on the subject:
Here
(Forgive my poor posting skills; I'm new in these parts. ;D)
If they were serious about this, they would endorse the single payer plan, which is the only assured savings route.
http://sendables.jibjab.com/originals/big_box...
Could Wal-mart lose huge tax incentives if we get a national plan. Could they be self insured and could it be deemed a captive insurance company and if so it would come with big tax breaks. I don't know just askin...Any help out there?
Attention Shoppers: Get Your pap smear on aisle three.
But wait...there's more: If I'm reading into this right this is a first step for major corporations to begin seeing how the "public option" process will save corporations billions of dollars in health insurance costs(including slowing down insurance fraud claims). Once GM,Ford,Dow Chemical etc.etc.come on board it won't take long to EVOLVE into something better for all: "single payer". Once they start thinking this was their idea I can see it EVOLVE. Hope I'm reading the perpetual motion right.
Smart move Walmart, and I don't even shop there(Aside from an Eagles or ACDC albums).
Sister Mary Darwin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boXa8c6OuRQ&fe...
St. Peter don't ya call me cuz I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store
Susie; you always seem very rational. Wal Mart being in favor of anything means someone else will lose. Whether it be the minimal coverage they can provide by law, or by being sure their employees will not qualify for it by reducing their hours like they do now.
And just to remind you, since when did we, the people, give up on a single payer health care system run by our government from day one, with no insurance entanglement to any American that wants it? Insurance companies are criminal organizations and any thought of having them a part of the health care situation is not only oppressive, it smacks of collusion.
Your hopes are troubling, your willingness to consider Wal Mart, a company that has shown their proclivity to bust union organizing, apparently willing to work with a Union to make this happen, naive.
this is one of the most irresponsible posts I have seen, Wal Mart is the enemy of the union and all people in this country. Look at their record and see if you can justify this kind of "hope" It is a screw that they are more than willing to administer to us all.
I will wait for a follow up post that shows some understanding of the other 300 million people in this country that don't work for the Arkansas chain saw massacre. Otherwise, farewell to reason and farewell to this blog. I must ask, are you being paid to shill for Wal Mart?
This is not good. A company that has opposed union membership coming to agreement with a union to support employer based health insurance implies to me that they will be able to force smaller companies out of business if they can't afford the cost of healthcare insurance.
up very nicely. I wouldn't trust WalMart as far as I could throw all of those self-absorbed and over-indulged Waltons that are always on all of the richest people lists.
Having worked with WalMart, as a vendor, in the 90s, they do nothing that does not benefit the company. Also, just because they offer access to health coverage does not mean anyone can afford it. I'm sure they'll be running ads tomorrow touting how wonderful they are for agreeing to look at the problem.
have to depend on Medicaid to cover their families.
... what is hidden inside this sheep's clothing seems suspicious to me. First of all, Employer mandated health care will tie one to the company that one works for. It is already hard enough to change jobs when one has health issues.
Ray C is right, if Walmart is for it, it can't really be a good thing for employees, for Walmart perhaps, but not it's workers.
Portable insurance is better and benefits the workers not the employers.
you do get access to pay for the privilege of that portability, it's called COBRA, and the last time I used it, which was late 1989 and early 1990, it cost me $585/month. I'm sure it's probably quadrupled by now.
If you want to pay your employer for the privilege of working for them because the "free" health insurance costs more than your salary, this is a wonderful thing. I'd expect no less from this perverted form of 'free market' we have built for ourselves.
This is Walmart after all.
this language is uncalled for. I'd like to pint out that every country with comprehensive health care, even single payer systems, went through an evolutionary progression that included employer health care. Some still have it. It definitely has it's downsides. Aside from job lock, it provides an excellent incentive for corporations to shut down operations or move them to other jurisdictions once their aging workforce makes that economically advisable. It favors larger corporations who can negotiate better deals and it can kill small businesses with one or two major illnesses. That's why there is usually an exemption based on number of employees. Which is more people who aren't covered. Nevertheless it is probably a first step towards universal coverage.
Name-calling is uncouth and shows a lack of intelligence. So put a sock in it.
What's the catch?
For many years now, Wal-Mart has been notorious for NOT wanting to provide health care for their employees. They were exposed as requiring workers to apply for government aid so they would then be eligible for benefits, getting Wal-Mart off the hook. So now I'm supposed to believe that they're all gaga over the idea of footing the bill? Really?
Hey, if it's true, I'm very happy. But something tells me there's a fish in the percolator.
If it is good for Wal-Mart it is not good for the average person. To me their signing on means the fix is in and you can bet the consumer will be screwed. Wal-Mart will probably open their own medical insurance business in order to further rip people, and particularly the government, off.
I have never walked into a Wal-Mart and I never will. I don't care how cheap their goods are. There's no way I'm giving such a rapacious, greedy bunch of bastards even one cent of my money, EVER.
They're doing it so that they can cripple other businesses with healthcare costs.
The only reason why healthcare reform is being brought up right now is not to solve the crisis that people are facing.
Its being brought up because major corporations (ex. GM) are being crippled due to the ridiculous cost of health care.
For GM, the cost of manufacturing a car in Detroit is higher (I think by like $1000) than in Canada because Canada actually has a reasonable healthcare system.
Washington doesn't care if people are suffering due to an inefficient healthcare system.
Washington does care if the companies that many of these lobbyists represent are suffering due to an inefficient healthcare system.
can anyone say indentured servitude?
... it is shameful, if anything.
F*ck WalMart, the only thing I have ever bought was a wrench for an emergency.
This would be great if the whole idea of employer provided health insurance was cretinous to begin with. Why would anyone want to perpetuate that stupid beast?
you might want to think about it this way... sums up MY cynical attitude, at least:
Jul 1 2009, 6:33 pm by Megan McArdle
Wal-Mart and Health Insurance: The Theories of the Case
http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/07/wal-m...
just like i'm very cynical about this, from TP's FAST thread:
The pharmaceutical lobby group PhRMA and the consumer health care advocate group Families USA are launching today a “multimillion-dollar national television advertising campaign to urge lawmakers to pass quality, affordable health care reform.”
and Faiz explains it, in another TP thread:
Well Katy, it looks like they want a seat at the table to negotiate over some of the phrma-related items, like comparative effectiveness research and the public plan's power to negotiate drug prices. They want to be on the inside, rather than outside, during the course of this debate. Hopefully, we can leverage these wonderful ads they're running to muster more pressure for progressive health care reforms.
as i said later: looks can be deceiving...
look up Billy Tauzin...
The only great news about Wal-Mart I will ever get excited about is if the whole damn operation goes bankrupt never to be seen or heard from again!
that made billions by underpaying workers and helping them apply for state and fed aid
fuck walmart
america is in the states its in, in no small part due to these fucks
dont buy into walmart
BLOW THE FUCKERS UP
Not any further than I could throw one of their stores. They have been the single most destructive influence from the private sector on US retail, manufacturing and other areas of the economy. Their executives deserve to join the board of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
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