Wal-Mart & The Nanny-State

February 27, 2006

There are plenty of justifiable reasons to dislike Wal-Mart. The fact that they don’t give health-care to everyone they employ is not one of them. Afterall, each time a new store opens, they’re greeted with thousands of applicants competing for the hundred-odd positions. But something is terribly wrong when even the beneficiaries of protective legislation recognize its hypocrisy:

Via the WaPo a few weeks back:

“The health care system cannot be fixed with a patchwork of state and local mandates that require individual industries to play by different rules,” said James M. Myers, chief executive of Petco Animal Supplies Inc., a member of the retailing group.”
snip
“Vincent DeMarco, a health care advocate who championed the bill, said the intent was never to target Wal-Mart. “No one should be singled out, and no one should be above the law,” he said.”

There was a piece on the news last night about the Maryland legislation that requires companies with more than 10,000 employees (i.e. Wal-Mart, and only Wal-Mart) to foot the bill for medical care for their employees, part-timers included. This is despite the facts, that many wal-marters are covered under a spouse’s plan, and that Wal-Mart’s coverage is not statistically different than an industry-wide survey of all industries in this country (I think varying by 3-5% in terms of overall coverage.)

So I explained to my mother, who is a long-time medical professional, the ridiculosity of this bill, (some have referred to it as a “bill of attainder,”) and that it ultimately comes down to some legislator’s whim - why 10,000 employees? Why not 9,500? 5,000? Now, my mom asked, rhetorically, “Why not 5 employees?” and, “Why do they [lawmakers] care? Shouldn’t they be happy that all of these employees are no longer on straight Medicaid like they were before they were employed?”

Because it makes people feel good, mom. It makes people feel like their elected reps are doing something, costs be-damned. It gives the elected reps something to point to when they’re up for re-election, and satiates the needs of interest groups. It’s Statism, at its finest.


Posted in: Potpourri

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