Kansas is a long way from Maryland in more than geography. Because of that, it comes as no surprise that a Maryland-style bill sponsored by Rep. Geraldine Flaharty, D-Wichita, to prod Wal-Mart into paying more of its employees’ health care costs is generating little enthusiasm in Topeka. But one related piece of information should give lawmakers and others pause: Many children of Wal-Mart employees are enrolled in Kansas’ HealthWave program, which provides health insurance for 37,000 kids in low-income families. “They’re threefold more than the second largest employer group, which is McDonald’s,” Robert Day, director of the Division of Health Policy and Finance, told the Lawrence Journal-World. In effect, that means those of us enjoying Wal-Mart’s low prices are also helping offset Wal-Mart’s limited employee benefits.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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47 Comments
Do you bother to take into account the # of jobs Walmart provides to people that probably did not have a job before?
It never ceases to amaze me at how the negative is all that is brought to light.
Since we are talking about negatives, lets talk about how forcing Walmart to increase healthcare benifits will result in one of two things:
1. Decrease in emplyee wages/salary to compensate for increase cost
or
2. Increase in prices.
If it is one then we really don’t help the emplyee’s that much in the end.
If it is two we basically pass a defacto tax increase off onto the consumer to pay for their increased health care costs.
Where does that money come from? It comes from people like me and many others who are by far from rich and will end up having less expendable income in our pockets.
So yeah, lets punish that evil Walmart…
Yes, providing good health care will involve raising prices. You don’t get something of value for nothing.
The question is how much do you have to raise prices to get significant health care benefits.
Quite a few Wal-Marts do 100 million dollars worth of business a year. Let’s say they have 200 hundred employees. And good health care costs 5,000 dollars a year. That works out to a million dollars a year.
You could cover that cost by raising the price of each item by 1 percent.
So a 200 dollar television would cost 202 dollars. A 2 dollar loaf of bread would cost 2 dollars and 2 cents.
By passing on this tiny, tiny increase, you would save taxpayers millions of dollars in government assistance.
This is corporate greed, pure and simple.
Great, another Wal Mart topic.
Can you dipsticks on the editorial board come up with anything that hasn’t already been talked to death? How about yet another Alito topic?
If you don’t like Wal Mart, do what I do. Don’t shop there.
I don’t.
God forbid that Wal-mart or any other big business would consider decreasing their executive salaries or even profit reports and thereby stock holders. No, we are taught to believe like Nathan that the only place that can be cut is the wages of the bottom income workers or increase price. Top level salaries are set in stone. Walmart could think outside the box to, but it would mean looking in their exec.’s bank vaults. Instead it is just fear tactics – Walmart will die and American economy with it if you make us be responsible for our employees. But many CEO’s will sink the company if they get a golden parachute.
So what’s the difference? we either pay for their health care through higher prices or we pay for their health care through taxes. Sorry, I have no sympathy for WalMart.
Nathan, there is another option. It is called “slightly less profit”. They can still make a profit, just a little less. And Allie is right about executive compensation. Share with those less fortunate, right Nathan?
Actually, profit wise, WalMart makes a less percentage than does K-Mart, Target, and most other big name discount stores. Something in the neighborhood of 3.5% compaerd to 6% for the others.
Allie hits it on the head. That’s exactly correct. Why is it that we should roll over for executive pay?
Wal-Mart’s CEO’s pay package is at something like 830x of the average hourly Wal-Mart worker. Instead of doing the lemming dance Nathan sees as the likely outcome, how about we pressure Wal-Mart to bring that ratio down to, oh, 350x? They can do it by cutting CEO pay and applying the difference to heatlth care, if they choose, or they can raise the pay of hourly workers so they can afford health insurance. In fact, Wal-Mart can even go into the health insurance biz if they want and buffer the cost, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with the bill.
It is not written in stone that the agents of owners (management) shall be millionaires while hourly workers depend on Medicaid. Why should we think it is?
Oh yes, lets take money away from the top exec’s.
I swear the liberal philosophy is punish the successful.
I would like for you to tell me how many people in Walmart make more that 50k a year in salary, what they make, and then how much you would reduce their salary by.
It is not going to be anywhere near a large amount of money you make it out to be when all is said and done.
Walker,I thought that 3 to 3.5% was the standard for discount variety stores – right where WalMart and others are now. Do you have other data? Thanks.
Nathan,My understanding is that each member of the Walton family make right at about 18 Billion with a B. per year. No exactly chump change, even by your standards/salary, I would bet.
Is WalMart the only employer in the country that (allegedly) does not provide full, complete and cheap insurance to its employees? Or is WalMart just a favorite lightning rod because it is so big?
What happens to very large companies when they do provide very large salaries and huge benefit packages? Check out GM, reporting a loss of $4.8 billion in the last quarter. Or Ford, laying off 30,000 employees.
Yep..great salaries…huge benefit packages…and then a pink slip.
Nope..I don’t pretend to have an answer, but am wondering why Walmart, which is not laying off thousands, continually gets attacked?
Steven,I read that some where on the net. I will try to find the info and post it for you.
Nathan, nathan, nathan,
“I would like for you to tell me how many people in Walmart make more that 50k a year in salary, what they make, and then how much you would reduce their salary by.”
Nathan, remember, it is not our job to prove your points. What does the $50,000 figure have to do with anything? Is that what you think their execs make? ROFLMAO Did you learn that at WSU?
“It is not going to be anywhere near a large amount of money you make it out to be when all is said and done.”
If it isnt going to be the “large amount” you think we have in mind, what will that amount be, oh wise one?
Can you prove what you said about the money? Can you actually do the math or the research and come up with your own figures, or do you just let everybody else do your work while you make wild assertions?
Can’t you find that figure in the bible? You are way overextended here son. We can hear you huffing and puffing as your run between posts.
LOL
I always love it when they finally break down like you do ksfarmgrrl.
Must every dialogue end up personal?
Can’t you discuss the facts or is it too hard?
Ray, despite the spin, Ford is laying off workers because, in Bill Ford’s words, they are not building what the market wants. They are closing down plants because of excess capacity due to missed sales volumn projections (read wishes).
They like to spin the health care costs, and I dont argue that those costs are out of control, but even Bill Ford acknowledged in his speech that they are in trouble because they are “selling what we have, not selling what the customer wants”.
If they were hitting their sales volumn projections, they wouldnt have these layoff needs, even in spite of health care costs. That “cost of health care” and “cost of pension” bull is their way of teeing up the unions and changing the subject.
Still waiting on your numbers nathan. I guess asking you to be truthful and not “truthiful” is getting personal.
“Can’t you discuss the facts or is it too hard?”
What fact do you want to discuss nathan? Careful now, dont change the subject or thread.
It is Ford’s way of pulling a nathan :)
Steven,Here is the URL of that contains the data I spoke of. It’s a George Will column, but I think the facts are accurate: http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/georgewill/2006/01/19/182959.html
This article has some very interesting info in it. You might be interested:http://money.cnn.com/2003/11/13/news/economy/wmt_effect/
Doncha love it…people on a blog in Wichita KS trying to determine how much money some billionares should make.
Okaaayyyy…whutever
Walker,Thanks, I will look at those links.
Raptor,I am not interested in saying how much the Waltons should earn. But, I don’t think they are especially deserving of sympathy from anyone. The Waltons are also notoriously cheap when it comes to charitable donations – unlike Bill Gates who is unusually generous.
Ray asks:Is WalMart the only employer in the country that (allegedly) does not provide full, complete and cheap insurance to its employees? Or is WalMart just a favorite lightning rod because it is so big?
Clearly, the answer is because they are so big. I have quoted this before – of the 12 states that are required to report which companies employ those residents who also accept Medicaid, WalMart is number one employer in 11 of those 12 states. They clearly rely upon tax subsidies to help their employees.
In Kansas the WalMart employees rely upon Healthwave insurance to cover their children. Healthwave is the most aggressively managed insurance a person can have. It will not be long before providers will stop accepting it due to the level of B.S. required to get paid. Many dentists would rather provide free care than put up with nonsense required under Medicaid. Thank God, some of them put their care where their mouth is.
Steven,I know about some of those “providers” of health insurance. My current provider’s management firm is so aggressive that when I called the hospitel about a bill I received, They told me they were thinking about dropping the firm because of the difficulty getting paid.
When I changed jobs once, my new employer used the same outfit as the one I worked for previously. I was informed that I needed to provide them with all my past years records, including medications, sickness, injuries, etc. When I informed them they already had that info, they said I still needed to provide it anyway. I asked them for copies of all the bills they paid in my name ( they had to provide it) and then copied the same info and sent it back to them. I got a call a week later from the HR asking me why the provider was pissed at me. I told her what I did and she cracked up. Said she was going to implement that as a way for new employees who had the provider previously to use for the info. She hated them also.
Sometimes we get the last laugh.
What about everyone taking individual responsibility for their own health care?
In this way people could purchase the type of policy they want. They wouldn’t be limited to what their employer provides — or doesn’t provide, as the case may be.
Wal-Mart is the best thing to happen to working families. It should be touted as a success, but Democrats don’t see it that way.
This is nothing more than Unions trying to run things again. They use willing leftist to push legislation instead of concrete shoes and sledge hammers to the knee caps.
Wilson,It seems reasonable, right? The problem is that companies will then try to cherry pick healthy patients instead of trying to get the most people enrolled or being efficient or whatever good practices capitalism might suggest. Health insurance is too liable to the bad practices of capitalism – price descrimination, cherry picking, etc. Individuals also don’t have the aggregate power of companies. Even somewhat small organizations (e.g. 40 employees) can distribute the cost of one very expensive employee over the healthy ones. Most people are unwilling to say that being sick is entirely one’s own fault, so it doesn’t seem fair to punish the person with bad genes, etc. Getting private insurance if you have a major chronic disease is a nightmare. The current system is bad, but individual insurance gives way too much power to the insurance companies.
Nathan wants facts and figures.
The average Wal Mart floor worker will make in a lifetime what the CEO of Wal Mart makes in two weeks.
Yup, Raptor. It’s called participatory democracy.
If you don’t like it, move to Russia.
(I’ve always wanted to say that!)
Ahhhhhh…… Rush farted and Joe Williams shared the vapors with us.
Ya now what folks? We are spoiled. We are spoiled by more than 80 years of folks who were willing to suffer, starve, and even die so that working folks could be treated like something more than “human resources”
This is along a different vein of thought, but to my mind Wal Mart should be busted up by anti-trust laws. It would be better in the end for them, and so much better for us.
Wal Mart is the perfect engine of greed. First they became our FRIEND! Liberal return policies, fierce adherence to American products, a smiley face.
Ah but then the competition started to die. Loss leaders and volume began killing off the corner store. As distributorship of product became concentrated, Wal Mart could not only dictate the shelf price for product, they began to exploit their high ground and dictate to manufacturers as to what they would pay for inventory.
So good paying American jobs in production were outsourced to cheap sources of labor in China. Double side benefit for Wal Mart here: now they control not just the price of retail and manufacture, but the very economy of their customers! We sell cheap stuff! You got no job! Come work for US! Uh .by the way? YOu got no choice! Get on in here and sing the WalMart song!
Real good illustration of this can be found at JibJab.com. Watch the Big BoxMart cartoon……..chilling.
As I said atthe start of this post, we are spoiled. But if you look back 100 years or so, you will find what were called the robber barons. These folks had nothing on Wal mart.
I do think people have a responsibility for their own health care. So, wilson is in his/her way correct.
Health care has never been purely market driven, and despite GW Bush’s hopes, it never will be. There are many reasons for this and since I don’t have space for a text book, I will have to ask the reader to believe this obvious fact.
Hopefully this debate will have space for a later time.
Well said, JR. Welcome back and my sympathies for your loss.
Ray
No Wal-Mart is not the only company not providing adequate health insurance. You also have all those companies that hire and work illegals. I haven’t heard anything about them.
A guy from up north,
Actually, WalMart is notorious for hiring illegals and for their vile affirmative action programs.
How far up north are you? I hope that you are not Canadian? I loathe Canadians!
Viva La Raza Blanco!!
“Proud Lib”..
So,your answer to anyone who doesn’t agree with your ridiculous rants is they should leave the country? Figures.
“Participatory democracy” is demonstrated by the idiotic comments I have read here? People sitting at their computers, pontificating on how WalMart should price their products? Or how much the majority stockholders should be allowed to make?
This cracks me up…posturing, going for the smart remark, having comments for everything, yet solving nothing.
This would be more entertaining if it weren’t so sad.
Why do you post then? To tell everybody how futile it is to post?
Don’t like Walmart? Think they treat their employees badly? Don’t shop there. Organize a boycott. Do whatever. If enough people share the sentiment, then Walmart can be convinced economically to reform their personnel policies, or whatever else it is that bothers you about the company.
But government action such as the one in Maryland that specifically targets one business is wrong.
Corporations are formed by government charter. They are entities of the government and subject to regulations the same as individuals.
As for making laws that target only one person, you might want to re-read the Supreme Court’s decision on Bush v Gore, especially the part about it being a “unique” decision that can never be used for precedent.
If you’d like to see a fine example of how a large consumer products company SHOULD run, look at Costco. A fantastic organization with a CEO that honestly cares about his employees. People that work there have an average of over 15 years of service with the company. If you take care of the people, they’ll take care of you!
“As for making laws that target only one person”
Schivo, anyone?
I made this very point a few weeks ago.(Walmart Consumers) Still, this bill goes too far and oversteps the proper reach and role of government. Keep in mind, Target locates close to Walmarts; go there until they shape up.
As usual, our folks on the right wing see government as something separate and removed.
Now these days I know it doesn’t look that way but last I checked it was GOVERNMENT of by and for the people. I think a REPUBLICAN said that.
So as an agent of by and for the people it is INHERENT in governemnt to regulate and restrict entities such as Wal Mart that would threaten the general welfare.
Now you on the side of laisez faire capitalism could EASILY destroy my arguement here but for one thing: Wal mart ITSELF is ADVOCATING their employees to seek benefits and reasonably fair treatment from……..the GOVERNMENT.
Now in this Wal mart stands out yet again! It would be perfectly defensible …atleast to the RIGHT… if Wal mart simply paid its employees badly and cared nothing for their health. But they don’t do that. They exploit their employees, inflict their stores where they are not wanted, and then tell their employees to find fulfillment of their needs fromthe government.
As I posted before, Wal mart is a marvel.It is the PERFECT engine of greed.
If Wal-Mart is as greedy as some claim, and if it is possible for them to raise their prices by one percent to pay for employee healthcare as others have claimed, I’m wondering why Wal-Mart doesn’t raise prices by one percent and keep the profit. Isn’t that the rational thing for a greedy corporation to do?
“Now you on the side of laisez faire capitalism could EASILY destroy my arguement here but for one thing: Wal mart ITSELF is ADVOCATING their employees to seek benefits and reasonably fair treatment from……..the GOVERNMENT.”
I don’t see that Wal-mart is doing that – I see what you are saying however. Wal-mart shouldn’t be treated any different than another smaller employer who doesn’t offer health benefits. Employers who’s employees earn what Wal-mart hourly people earn don’t, for the most part, offer health benefits to employee either.
The deal in Maryland was restricted to employers of 10,000 or more employees.
Eaglereader,
WalMart as a matter of ROUTINE helps its new hires to file for food stamps, public health care and other forms of government aid. This has been well documented.
J R,Regardless of what walmart does or doesn’t do, the government has NO business sticking its nose in, and making a law for, one company. When the groups lobbying for government to do just that are composed of unions and competing businesses , one wonders what their ultimate goal is?
Sound to me that they are a little ticked off that walmart is out businessing them. Sore losers attempting to use government to do what they couldn’t. Yep, that’s what I want my tax dollars going to.
Off topic sorry…
“As for making laws that target only one person”
Schivo, anyone?
X, did you see Frist on Russert today? He has “no regrets”, either medical or political about the Shiavo incident. Check out Crooks and Liars for the scoop.