Wal-Mart Finally Succumbs to Government Pressure on Employer Mandated Health Coverage

Wal-Mart (WMT) made headlines yesterday when it appeared they succumbed to the desire to curry favor with the government. Wal-Mart now backs a push for an employer mandate for health insurance. The story is more complicated than capitulation on Wal-Mart’s part. The Washington Post has a good article on Wal-Mart’s endorsement of an employer mandate.

Wal-Mart has fought state efforts to force mandates on them, but these state mandates were union sponsored initiatives. In most cases they were designed to saddle Wal-Mart with expenses that other local retailers would not have to shoulder.

The idea of an employer mandate is moving in the wrong direction, from a global competitive perspective. Our exporters have a health care cost in every widget sold. It would be much better to have an individual mandate, and remove this cost from our GDP.

John McCain could not sell this during the presidential campaign, his fault. He was never able to cut through the personal interests of people thinking it was going to cost them money. If we want a free, competitive market, we should embrace individual responsibility for our family’s health care.

An individual tax deduction for health care, with a penalty if you do not buy a tax deductable plan would lead us to a faster solution to the current “health care crisis.” Couping this with ending the corporate deduction for health care, would instantly lower costs for domesticly produced goods whether exported or sold in America. Yes, everything would cost less at our stores!

Wal-Mart needs to be careful. They are playing the same game so many have tried before. You cannot deal with a government that seeks to destroy you. They will learn this as all others have.

Read about who needs health care in America.

It is important to comply with the law. When business advocates for a law out of perceived self-interest, they cross into the never land of becoming a lap dog of the world improvers that want dictatorial powers and control. Woe is us.

Disclosure: No Position

Comments

[KevinL:]

"You cannot deal with a government that tries to destroy you"....it was a decent article until I saw this statement!....

Jul 02 07:42 AM

[JCC:]

Having close relatives working for Walmart, I was amazed to see that Walmart's health care coverage, over a period of several years, surpassed most S&P 500 companies from a standpoint of cost and coverage. As you know, Walmart has been blasted for years about health care coverage.

The point is that contrary to popular belief, Walmart has for some years been a leader in supplying healthcare coverage. Walmart's support of the Obama propsal is not surprising, because they are already complying and adoption of the new plan would level the playing field, in that other companies would also have to supply equivalent coverage for their employees.

This article appears to be telling a story to support a point of view. The problem is that the facts do not support the story.

Jul 02 12:45 PM