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| Wal-Mart Whacks Working Poor - Beats Maryland's Proposed Health Care Contribution Law |
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| 7/25/2006 |
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ROBIN'S PERSPECTIVE: In a huge victory for retailers – most notably, Wal-Mart - a U.S. District Court judge in Maryland invalidated a law that would have required private employers with 10,000 or more employees in that state to contribute up to 8% of the their total wages towards providing health care insurance for their otherwise uninsured employees.
Although the law would have affected four other employers in the state, the only one that was not providing a state-determined fair share towards employee health care costs was the wildly profitable retailer. Did Wal-Mart step up to the plate? It sure did – and promptly used all of its mighty power to deliver yet another devastating blow to the working poor.
Why should the burden of paying for health care fall to the taxpayers generally – especially when Wal-Mart’s owners remain some of the richest people in the world, thanks to the labor of their low-wage-earning employees? Is it really too much to ask that Wal-Mart dedicate some of its legal intellect and human resources savvy to finding a workable health care solution for its employees, instead of using that power to litigate ways around that help? What a blown public relations opportunity for the big guy!
Other states have come up with creative ways to provide a so-called “fair share” towards employee health costs. For example, Vermont requires employers that don’t offer health coverage to employees to pay $91.25 per employee per quarter into a fund starting in 2007. Massachusetts requires a $295-per-employee annual assessment from employers that don’t provide “fair and reasonable” coverage.
I pose this challenge to Wal-Mart and others: forego a few pennies – and an 8% contribution from a minimum wage paycheck is, relatively speaking, only pennies to folks making billions –apply your business savvy, and show us all how far just a little bit can go towards helping solve the national health care coverage dilemma
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