Always low benefits
When it comes to health care for Wal-Mart workers, state taxpayers continue to subsidize the company.
Here's what I don't understand, and I believe Atrios originally made this point a very long time ago (in blog time, anyhow) on Eschaton: why isn't the U.S. business community demanding that health care be taken off their hands?
Whether one thinks a single payer plan or some other reform is best, if all businesses in the United States no longer had to worry about directly funding health care as a condition of employment (or not, as the case may be,) then the playing field is level, at least amongst U.S. corporations. Yes, businesses and thus consumers would still bear costs, but the current system rewards the least responsible companies.
The overhead to adminster health care benefit plans is staggering. Nobody likes the current system, except maybe some insurance companies. The duplication of effort and multitude of rules that vary from insurer to insurer and even patient to patient is terribly inefficient, not to mention maddening to millions of patients. Health care should be between patients and the care-givers, not between employers and insurance companies.
It's reasonable to expect patients to pay part of their health care, so let's nip that old canard "socialized medicine" right in the bud. It's not reasonable to expect people to work at or near minimum wage with no health care coverage.
People who work for a living should not have to worry that a serious illness or injury will wipe them out financially. Surely we can come up with a better way.
Wal-Mart again has been listed as having more workers on Medicaid and Washington's Basic Health Plan than any other private employer in the state.The article notes that a Maryland law that would require large employers to spend 9% of their payroll on health care was overturned in federal court. So that approach may not be viable.
According to a state compilation of enrollments in June, Wal-Mart had 3,194 employees in the two taxpayer-subsidized health care programs out of 16,000 employees in the state, while McDonald's was second with 1,932 and Safeway - also with a work force of about 16,000 in Washington - was third with 1,302.
[...]
The report presented to legislators Thursday estimated that assistance for Wal-Mart employees will cost the state around $9 million this year out of a total of $600 million for all workers in Washington who receive such aid.
Here's what I don't understand, and I believe Atrios originally made this point a very long time ago (in blog time, anyhow) on Eschaton: why isn't the U.S. business community demanding that health care be taken off their hands?
Whether one thinks a single payer plan or some other reform is best, if all businesses in the United States no longer had to worry about directly funding health care as a condition of employment (or not, as the case may be,) then the playing field is level, at least amongst U.S. corporations. Yes, businesses and thus consumers would still bear costs, but the current system rewards the least responsible companies.
The overhead to adminster health care benefit plans is staggering. Nobody likes the current system, except maybe some insurance companies. The duplication of effort and multitude of rules that vary from insurer to insurer and even patient to patient is terribly inefficient, not to mention maddening to millions of patients. Health care should be between patients and the care-givers, not between employers and insurance companies.
It's reasonable to expect patients to pay part of their health care, so let's nip that old canard "socialized medicine" right in the bud. It's not reasonable to expect people to work at or near minimum wage with no health care coverage.
People who work for a living should not have to worry that a serious illness or injury will wipe them out financially. Surely we can come up with a better way.
