I don’t like government mandates on health insurance, such as requiring that businesses only offer plans that include coverage of this or that medical condition. So I’m certainly no fan of Maryland’s new law requiring that all large employers (i.e., Wal-Mart) spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on employee health benefits or make a contribution to the state’s insurance program for the poor. That said, I appreciate the frustration of Maryland lawmakers. Some companies are “socializing” their costs by either not offering health insurance or paying such low wages that it is difficult for their employees to afford to buy insurance. The result is that the state (i.e., taxpayers) ends up paying for this health care.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Registered?
Commenting on WE Blog now requires you to be a Kansas.com member. Use the links above to register, if you haven't already, or to log in.Contact us
Follow us
Daily Archives
-
Recent Comments
- DorisKing on Open thread 11/22
- Chas on Open thread 11/22
- george on Health care reform would save state money
- satatom on Open thread 11/22
- satatom on Open thread 11/22
- Politico on So they said
- BlueJay on Open thread 11/22
- JWink on Health care reform would save state money
- Politico on Health care reform would save state money
- BlueJay on Open thread 11/22
48 Comments
I was raise with the American dream: One house, not too large or too small, with the creature comforts and a garage for the car. One forty hours a week job and a work philosophy my dad gave me(God rest his soul) “Take care of the company and they will take care of you”.
True that dad was of another generation, when the company was still ran by the owner that had build it. By the sweat of their brow and the blood from their fingers. There was a symbiotic relationship between the owner and the worker. The owner depended on the workers to make them money, to produce the product to be sold and make a product that was worth selling. In exchange the owner will insure that the best workers had reason not to go elsewhere for a survival. The owner realizing that it was because of his workers that he could make money and have a product to sell. The workers could take pride in the product and the company they worked for.Some say it is the way of business, staying competitive with others. But American companies are becoming ran like the image of the spoiled rich kid. They do not really know how the money was made, they do not care how it was made as long as they can spend it. Nor do they really see the hard work it took to make it.They came into the picture pass the lean years and only understand the fat. With a thinking that it could never end and when it does they throw away all that is left to save the money instead of save the company.
Here is the picture that the American worker is facing: You are competing with a third world worker who get no insurance, makes a dollar a day, works in a work space that is as dangerous as a mine field. The employer see them as a toilet paper, once used they are flushed and a new roll it just a matter of reaching into the cabinet. The only way to compete is for America to become a nation of third world workers.When it become cheaper to pay to have the product shipped from over sea then to pay for it to be made in the U.S. That is the real cost of staying completive, but of course as was referenced above in that there is nothought on the part of the American company other then saving the money instead of saving the company.America is a nation of not only workers but consumers, by lowering your consumers wages and benefits.You then lower your sales, if you happen to be in the business of sales of big ticket items. You only hurt yourself by closing plants moving work over sea and what you have left is the same level of workers as you do in China.
But a bit of a twist is that the consumer base in China is increasing while the consumer base of America is decreasing. In a business point of view, that is not seen as a loss as you are just shifting the source of your money from one pocket to the other. Ok in the short term, but to really effect the future of the company it would be smarter to build up the base in one market while keeping the base in the other. But instead the companies act like a vampire, as they feed they also kill but then once their food source starts drying up they move on to a new hunting ground. Without a thought to how they are running out of food by doing so.
One point about Walmart and Medicare. There was documentation that showed they even coached the employees on how to apply for the health benefits.
If an employer admits healthcare is too expensive for it’s employees instead of just creating legislature to force them to spend more money. Why dont’ we create legistlature that moves healthcare to a more affordable cost?
Wait, I keep forgetting. We can’t compete with the healthcare lobbyists for the money it takes to buy the votes.
The simple fact is that the market (that means all of us) doesn’t value the work that Wal-Mart workers (and other retail workers, since Wal-Mart’s pay is about the same or more than many other retailers such as K-Mart) perform very much. That’s why their pay is low. Passing a law doesn’t change the economic value of their work, although it will increase its cost.
Not sure about your analysis, wilson. Although it’s true that Wal-Mart’s share price of $45.40 (last Friday) is down from it’s all time high of nearly $60, it’s still nearly flat to its 18-month average (after paying a $0.15/share dividend last month to boot). Friday’s share price is 5 times it’s Jan-96 closing price of $9.50.
In fact, the _market_ seems to value Wal-Mart and its workers quite highly.
For example, executive compensation certainly is not shrinking.
http://www.ips-dc.org/projects/global_econ/walmart_pay_gap.htm
I think you got it backward: it’s _Wal-Mart_ that doesn’t value the work that rank-and-file Wal-Mart workers perform very much (or US taxpayers either, for that matter).
$0.02
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=WMT&a=07&b=25&c=1972&d=00&e=15&f=2006&g=m&z=66&y=0
wilson, I am wrong.
Actually overall executive compensation is down, likely due to the variable components. Executive salary – the fixed component – continues to grow, however.
I think the problem with Wal-Mart is that people support it. In the end, people would rather buy a cheaper product and not care about the damage it does the local economy. Wal-Mart knows we ultimately don’t care if the stuff is made in a sweat shop in China or if their “competitive” practices are obscenely geared at driving local business out and then making a profit afterwards. If it takes Wal-Mart not paying health benefits so I can buy an extra pair of cheep shoes, so be it. In my mother’s generation, people spent more on clothing as a percentage of income than they do now, but they had fewer clothes of a higher quality. Middle class people with an American flag in their car parked at Wal-Mart are kidding themselves about supporting America. And company practices like Wal-Mart’s are heaping create the low income families that then have to shop at Wal-Mart to survive.
As a stock holder in Walmart I expect them to downsize the number of employees in Maryland to under the 10,000 target. They are in business to make money for the stockholders not employee people.
Sam,A word of advice; dump those shares fast! The Walmart truck is out of control, and headed straight for a cliff! Jump!
Jed, I agree. I’ve heard from two brokers that Wal-Mart is a recommended “buy” and I wonder what crack they’re smoking.
I see a number of structural problems for Mao-Mart, things that economists tend to ignore–
1. a lot of people are waking up to the fact that “always low prices” is total crap. Some of their stuff is lowest but the vast majority isn’t.
2. another huge segment of society won’t shop there because Mao-Mart’s image is “cheap and shoddy.” My office mate for instance wouldn’t be caught dead near a Wal-Mart because she thought it was just tacky and only tacky people shop there.
3. there’s the growing Wal-Mart backlash, of which I’m a part
4. Wal-Mart is a great place to go if you want to wander aimlessly through isles of junk. If you actually want help about what you’re buying so you can get in and out and on with your life, go to the local hardware.
5. Countries overseas in Europe and Japan have far more restrictions on what employers can do. That’s why Wal-Mart employees in German are ALL unionized–they have to be unionized. Wal-Mart seems to make a profit there just fine, but boo hoo, that can’t do it here.
A quick follow up–those people who say we don’t have and don’t want “nationalized health care” are wrong.
We have “de facto” taxpayer funded health care right now. If you’re in a car accident and you don’t have health insurance and you get to a hospital, that hospital will give you some care (maybe not the best care).
Who pays for it? We, taxpayers.
Wouldn’t it be better to have “de jure” health care than this cobbled together “de facto” nationalized health care we have now?
I heard their side of the story on NPR. Walmart in MD employees 17,000 people and 3/4 of them have Health Insurance through the company with a premium that cost on average $23 a month. That is much better than any other company. Yet! The leftist say that their health insurrance sucks and they have too high deductables that make it unaffordable.
The legislation targets companys that employ over 10,000 people. Only four in MD have that many employees… And yep! Walmart is one, the rest… you guess it… government!
Walmart said that the 1/4 of the people at Wal-mart that do not have health insurrance are either part-time employees or elected not to have it.
Many advocacy groups are oppose to this legislation, and many are not even friendly to Wal-Mart. Because they said the legislation does nothing to address the health care problem.
Wal-Mart and the other advocacy groups said that forcing Wal-Mart to pay the state or provide health insurrance to every single person that works there does nothing to address the health care issue. The real issue is health care cost that is skyrocketing. That is why companies are having a hard time paying for it or having insurrance programs that have to ask people to pay a small portion for. They said that government needs to address the double digit rate of health care cost increase and not single out and attack a company.
The health care crisis is the health care COST, not in companies not providing it or the uninsurred in this country. We need to address the COST!
One thing for certain. You won’t find any large businesses moving to Maryland. They are scratched off the list.
Thanks for that post, JoeW.
What you are saying is that the pharma and health care special interests are now pitted against the Wal-Mart special interest.
Hmmm . . . who has the better lobbyists? I’m going with big pharma/health care.
This is what happens when you throw open the doors of government to corporate special interests. The behemoths fight with eachother and we ordinary citizens are trampled.
You know ProudLiberal, I actually agree with you on that point.
In 2003 Cedar Bluff hosted a national bass fishing tournament. I helped recruit them, and the biggest question the organizers asked was “how far is your little town from the nearest Wal-Mart?” I was, for once, speechless.
You should have said, “far enough away that we still have big bass in the lakes.”
Ah, the great Wal-Mart threat to our existance, it’s a shame that the smartest lady in the world, and the left’s great hope didn’t fix the problem when she was on their board of directors. But she was pretty busy in cattle futures at the time!
Hank
Make sence ksfarmgrrl. Lots of outdoor sportsmen shop at Wal-mart to get their gear. Hooks, lurers, bait, fishing string, or whatever.
What mom and pop store in a small town has that? You can’t find a decent hardware store in a small town, let alone bait and tackle shop.
I have an older friend who refuses to shop at Wal-mart. We were talking yesterday and he said, he actually went to Wal-Mart to buy a ceiling fan, and he said when he was looking around he couldn’t believe how inexpensive glassware, cooking appliances, and clothing were at Wal-mart.
He is an older gentlemen and a bit well-off. He said “No wonder people shop at Wal-Mart. Things are cheaper at Wal-mart then the exact things were 20-30 years ago.”
He said his attitude change with Wal-Mart now. He said that iit s a great place for poor and lower middle-class people.
He was so against Wal-mart because he felt they killed small businesses and mom and pop stores. Now he understands that Wal-Mart has done more to help people get the things they need then any other store would even attempt to do.
I am no Wal-Mart fan. However, their profit margins run in the 3.5% range and are not different from the average Discount variety store.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/research/wizards/srwfund.asp?Symbol=WMT
What makes them different is that they aim to sell huge volumes and they have been successful in that.
In 11 of the 12 states (where it is required reporting )the company employing people who receive welfare benefits, Wal-Mart tops the list. What I have wondered is the preceding because they are taking advantage of these workers, or are they giving them a hand up? Half full, or half empty?
You can justify slavery on the same grounds, Joe.
“Think of all the stuff poor people can buy now!”
Wow, that slave labor sure is a wonderful thing.
The interesting thing about this is the fact that WalMart is a successful business, and the Liberals hate it. Walmart is a free-market success because the people who shop there are saying it’s okay to do so. If the products wern’t up to the general publics standards, people wouldn’t shop there. Nobody is forcing people to shop there. The parking lots are full 7/24. They are a success because they are supplying what people want.
If the Liberals ran the stores, they would be supplying union made goods, at out of reach prices, and blasting average people for not shopping there. Never mind that the average person couldn’t afford to. Then the Liberals would be asking the government to subsidize them.
If over 75% of the employees at WalMart in MD have insurance, and the other employees are either part time, or refuse insurance for whatever reason (probably the spouse has better insurance at their place of employement), than the Maryland legislature is barking up the wrong tree. Just another example of Government poking their nose in places it shouldn’t be. I wonder how many of the government employees in Maryland have health insurance?
Who is forced to work at Walmart with their $23 a month costs for health insurance? (I wish I only paid $23 a month..mine is closer to $160 a month.)
Who is forced to work at Walmart or McDonalds? Anyone? Of course, people who dropped out of free public education (through their own choice) don’t have many employment options, but that is not THEIR fault. Nope, they are the VICTIMS and so we need more laws.
*sigh*. This country is becomming more and more socialist every day. Did anyone pay any attention at all to what happened to the largest socialism experiment in history? The USSR no longer exists. It was socialism on a grand scale..and failed. Does that ring ANY bells at all with you people who’s answer to everything is MORE laws???
There’s always a solution short of shooting the yapping dog, but some are too stupid, arrogant, self-centered or just don’t care enough to find it. They are full of reasons.
Not unlike putting an arm around a wounded fellow soldier and dragging him to safety, rather than putting yourself at risk. There are reasons, for some, for not doing that as well.
Ray,I don’t know about “forced,” but a friend of mine was an engineer who was laid off in the aircracft slump following 9/11. After her unemployment ran out, she worked for almost a year at Walmart before another engineering job opened up. While nobody held a gun to her head, it was the only way she could make her house payments! She’s very glad to be working for an honest wage again, and be done with the harassment and starvation wages and imitation health care that Walmart offers.
Who’s talking about more laws? I agree that consumers like what Wal-Mart offers or they wouldn’t shop there.
That said, how about if we Americans just get Wal-Mart to be responsible for its employees health care like everybody else? How? By not shopping there until they change.
The issue isn’t that WM breaks the law, it’s that it’s compensation is top heavy. So top heavy that it helps its employees sign up for Medicaid health care rather than take some executive pay and appy it to overall employee health care (note: this is not OWNER pay, it’s the owner’s agent’s pay: management.)
For instance, anybody know about Costco? Why is it that Costco can pay its workers $40K per year – and also take care of 90+% of its health care costs – but Wal-Mart can’t?!?! Most people I know who have the choice between Costco and Sam’s Club choose Costco hands down. Why? One reason is that Costco employees offer better customer service, even though there are fewer of them per store. Costco also offers prices just as low, if not lower, than Wal-Mart.
If you’re in W. Kansas you may not have a choice anymore, but here you can always choose Target for one. It’s also true that Costco is very selective about the markets in which it chooses to compete. For example, Costco has two stores in Johnson County but none here.
This is not socialism, ferpetessake, it’s consumer activism preferring one business model over another because one business model captures all its costs while the other finds a way NOT to cover costs.
It’s also called productivity, and that’s about as American as apple pie.
I suppose this fits under the truthiness link, but . . .
Johns Hopkins University (private), Giant Food, and Northop Grunnman Corp have +10,000 workers, but they meet the minimum expenditure on health care. Not only the government.
3/4 of employees have health benefits, but, guess what, that includes Medicaid (which is what this whole deal is about).
The $23 plan was created by Wal-Mart after this bill began its trip through MD congress.
And the Gov. that vetoed it? He had a fundraiser thown for him by Wal-Mart the year before, but that didn’t affect his voting . . .
Oh and Ray-Who is usually against increasing funding for schools so that at risk kids can get decent educations?Who supports “merit” pay which induces the best teachers to try to teach at schools that have the most promising students instead of the hard to teach students whose test scores lower their pay?Who won’t allow Medicaid to fund birth control pills pushing more people further into poverty by having more children?Who won’t support welfare so that mother’s can raise their children which will help themto get off the system instead of working 2 jobs just to feed them?
I agree with you about the country being more socialist though, if you mean the way Bush is veering strongly towards National Socialism. Then, I agree. It is certainly relevant because a main point is valuing the needs of corporations over the people, but also – engaging in wars of aggression, breeding continual fear among the populace, picking particular undesirables to hate, trying to legislate morality. Yeah, sounds like the National Socialist German Worker’s Party to me.
John Hopkins University: Staff 3,100
Northop Grunnman Corp in Maryland employees barely 9,000
Only Giant Foods has more than 10,000 employees. Northop and John Hopkins only fall in the category of the new law. John Hopkins is under the 6% rule and not the 8%, since it is non-profit.
“The Maryland bill was backed by an unlikely lobbying alliance between local groups: the United Food and Commercial Workers International union and Giant Foods, the state’s largest supermarket operator, which is owned by Ahold, the Dutch retailer.
Giant and Wal-Mart are the only two private employees in Maryland with more than 10,000 workers.
According to the Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative, which has pushed for the legislation, Wal-Mart spends only 3.5 per cent of its payroll on healthcare for more than 15,000 workers in Maryland. Giant, with 18,000 unionized members in the state, says its healthcare costs are equivalent to around 20 per cent of its payroll.
…The Maryland governor’s department of business and economic development has said it opposes the bill, calling it bad for business, and suggesting it is being used by Giant to block competition.”
Basically this is a tactic used by Giant Foods (a foriegn owned company) to beat down it’s competition. They are using government to do it.
So next time Allie! Get your facts straight. And the 3/4 of Wal-Mart employees are not on Medicaid, their maybe RETIREES recieving medicare, but, it comes down that Wal-Mart is paying less than than it’s competitor in percentage wise on its healthcare program.
You liberals are so blind and only believe reteric and left leaning websites.
Also! You qouting straight from the Washington Post or a left leaning website on your employee numbers.
I went straight to the company websites to find out. Looks like you are wrong Allie!
Either way, you pay. Allowed to be left alone Walmart won’t pay for real health coverage and so the taxpayer pays. Force Walmart to pay and they will just raise prices. Maybe instead of focusing on Walmart we should do something about lower health care costs. Perhaps a good look at drug companies would be a good start. But as long as you continue to spend your money at Walmart you are part of the problem.
Joe and Marty,By your logic, we should move to socialized medicine since as you say, we’re all going to pay for it anyway.A company furnishes health insurance and we pay for it through higher prices. The company doesn’t furnish it, and we pay through higher taxes. The only difference as I see it, socialized medicine covers everybody and not just the fortunate.
If Wal-Mart “could just raise prices,” then they wouldn’t need the excuse of higher employee health care costs to do so.
Believe me, they’d just raise prices anyway.
That said, I’m sure Wal-Mart would take some opportunity to raise some prices, but more likely they’d look to squeeze margin out of their suppliers in lowered product costs first.
But yes, the underlying problem is that health care insurance premiums are increasing far faster than Wal-Mart prices, driven by higher drug prices.
And I believe that what drives that is that too many Americans prefer to ignore preventive care and focus rather on outcomes only after disease has set in. If we focused more on wellness then we might find that our increased health would take the strain off of our ruinously costly outcomes-based health care, at least in the aggregate.
Wow, good discussion on both sides. Thanks for bringing up Costco, flike, I had forgotten about that success story.
In fact, I may have to check the stock valuations of Costco . . .
Who said this:
“all people have a right to life, food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, education, and employment.”
Hehehe, not Bush, that’s for damn sure–your quote not only shows compassion but it’s grammatical.
I’m guessing FDR?
Joe-What do you mean by, “Northop and John Hopkins only fall in the category of the new law?” What other law is there?
I didn’t say that 3/4 were on Medicaid, just that the number you cited was acknowledged by a Walmart spokesperson to include employess on medicaid.
Where did you find your site for Northrup Grumman? I did not find that data on their website.
Johns Hopkins employees includes faculty, not just staff. I don’t know where you got your number. According to their report (http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/reports/impact/2003/impact2003.pdf) they have 44,281 “direct employees within Maryland.”
Oh, and, Joe, where is your highly unbiased source for your rather awkward quote in the middle?
http://www.rightwingnews.com/category.php?ent=3689
Yeah, Joe, I will take the Washington Post any day over that. It is, in fact, a real news source whose editorials you may not agree with and therefore have to discredit the whole paper. This? Internet trash, pure and unadulterated.
A hint about my quote; I have been falsely accused of bashing the organization of which the speaker was the head. Now a quote from the organization: “Distributive justice requires that the allocation of income, wealth, and power in sociaty be evaluated in light of its effects on persons whose basic needs are unmet.” “Private property does not constitute for anyone an absolute or unconditional right. No one is justified in keeping for his exclusive use what he does not need, when others lack necessities.”
“One cannot exclude the socialization, in suitable condisions, of certain means of production.”
I do not necessarily agree with these statements but they are definitely thoughts to consider; particularly when you consider the source. Any guesses?
I KNOW ! I KNOW! It was Pope Paul VI, and what I’m sure you’re getting at, Ben, is that Bill Gates of Microsoft fame quoted it in his recent book.
Do I get a free trip to the emergency room for answering correctly??
You are close. The first quote was Pope John XXIII and the last one PopeJohn Paul II. The rest came from “A Pastoral Message: Economic Justice For All” National Conference of catholic Bishops. I don’t know about Gates quoting it though so you were incorrect on that count. So, that is NOT what I was getting at. My source was the Conference of Bishops.
So, ultimately, an 8% increase to the company gets passed on to….
Allie! I’ll give you that numbers for John Hopkins. But the actual university only employees 3,100 people. The University itself is smaller than WSU actually.
But you can say that all the hospitals, medical clinics, research labs, and every subsiderary then you get the number like you say, but its really fudging it. Most are funded by the government.
That is like saying the National Institute of Aviation Research, while technically part of WSU, it actually seperate.
John Hopkins is a power in that state. Everything medical in that state has something to do with John Hopkins. It is like Via Christi having something to do with every single hospital, medical clinic, and doctor office in the state of Kansas. While seperate, you can say everything is included. And a report about Economic Impact by John Hopkins is going to reflect the highest number fudging possible.
But I will give that to you. I appoligize for being a bit nasty also. Sometimes I get really bias against liberals, and it shows. I’ll try to be more candor in my postings.
Joe-Thanks for the concession, but it isn’t fudging either. University hospitals are parts of universities. Hopkins hospital is still owned and run as part of Johns Hopkins University. My parents worked for them many years ago. They were hired and their saleries and benefits came from the university system. I seriously doubt JHU is including partnerships and employees whose saleries they do not pay. Partnerships are separate organizations. For another example, Tulane University, as part of the whole schools’ survival plan, recently fired over 100 doctors that were legitimate Tulane employees.
Sorry, I clicked too soon.I do appreciate your comments about getting heated. I think we get so used to having the same arguments even though may be with different people that we carry on with the passion from where we were the last time we were in the debate.
Before I ever shop Walmart, Before I ever lower myself to work for that penultimate of the exploitation of sick out of control capitlaism, I would sooner die.
Cheers to Maryland for fighting back.
WalMart is now the second largest employer in the US. The first is the US government. And government workers have at least unions to protect them.It is a lie to say that “no one is forced to work at Wal mart”. The increasing scarcity of jobs coupled with the destruction of American small business is a direct effect of walmart.This andthe prevailing attitude agaist social safety nets is in fact a gun at the heads of Americans. To whit: Work at Walmart or starve and die.
It is time to bring anti-trust legislation against Walmart. Threaten Walmart with dissolution,union and they will straighten up…..or be forced to.
Unless and until that happens, If walmart were the only available supplier of a medicine that would save my life? I’d die picketing in their parking lot.
J R.Where do we send the flowers?
Government employees still have unions? I thought that as part of DHS, the right of collective bargaining has been suspended, i.e., accused of giving aid and comfort to the terrorists…
Before I ever shop Walmart, Before I ever lower myself to work for that penultimate of the exploitation of sick out of control capitlaism, I would sooner die.
Cheers to Maryland for fighting back.
WalMart is now the second largest employer in the US. The first is the US government. And government workers have at least unions to protect them.It is a lie to say that “no one is forced to work at Wal mart”. The increasing scarcity of jobs coupled with the destruction of American small business is a direct effect of walmart.This andthe prevailing attitude agaist social safety nets is in fact a gun at the heads of Americans. To whit: Work at Walmart or starve and die.
It is time to bring anti-trust legislation against Walmart. Threaten Walmart with dissolution,union and they will straighten up…..or be forced to.
Unless and until that happens, If walmart were the only available supplier of a medicine that would save my life? I’d die picketing in their parking lot.
Apologies the double post. But anything worth saying is worth saying twice. Callit a happy accident.
Good post, JR. “Nobody has to work at Wal-Mart.”
Oh, yeah, you betcha. You can always move to Bulgaria and teach English.
But when Wal-Mart comes in and decimates the downtown, where are all those dislocated workers supposed to go?
“Nobody has to work at Wal-Mart” is the inane observation of people who have secure (or THINK they have secure) jobs.