2008 Woodie Awards
Wal-Mart continues to shortchange its workers
Jill Hopke ; KRT
Issue date: 11/19/05 Section: Opinion
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Wal-Mart needs to do right by its workers. And the Bush administration should stop letting the company off the hook.
Wal-Mart, as the nation's largest employer, has a responsibility to provide adequate health insurance to its employees.
Currently, less than half of Wal-Mart's workers are covered by company health insurance, compared with more than 80 percent of employees covered at its competitor, Costco, where workers are unionized. Nationally, an average of 68 percent of workers at large companies receive health insurance coverage from their employers.
Wal-Mart recently announced changes in its health insurance plan that may sound good, with premiums as low as $11 per month. But a $1,000 deductible and a $25,000 cap on coverage in the first year will still leave the majority of Wal-Mart's employees _ many of whom earn an average of less than $19,000 per year _ and their families one major accident or illness away from financial ruin.
And those $11 per month premiums will be available to only a few employees. Monthly premiums will average $37 for a single parent and $65 for a family, which comes out to $780 per year for family coverage. By contrast, 73 percent of Americans spend less than $500 a year in medical expenses, according to a recent article in The New York Times.
Wal-Mart's own figures show that 38 percent of the company's workers spent more than one-sixth of their income on health care last year. During that same period, the company earned $10.5 billion in profit on $285 billion in sales.
Nearly half of the children of the company's 1.3 million employees in the United States are on Medicaid or have no health insurance at all, according to an internal memo made public by the watchdog group Wal-Mart Watch.
The leaked memo showed Wal-Mart being more concerned with combating critics and bolstering its public image rather than with providing adequate health insurance to its workers.
The memo suggested reframing the Medicaid debate as "everyone's problem, not just Wal-Mart's."
Wal-Mart, as the nation's largest employer, has a responsibility to provide adequate health insurance to its employees.
Currently, less than half of Wal-Mart's workers are covered by company health insurance, compared with more than 80 percent of employees covered at its competitor, Costco, where workers are unionized. Nationally, an average of 68 percent of workers at large companies receive health insurance coverage from their employers.
Wal-Mart recently announced changes in its health insurance plan that may sound good, with premiums as low as $11 per month. But a $1,000 deductible and a $25,000 cap on coverage in the first year will still leave the majority of Wal-Mart's employees _ many of whom earn an average of less than $19,000 per year _ and their families one major accident or illness away from financial ruin.
And those $11 per month premiums will be available to only a few employees. Monthly premiums will average $37 for a single parent and $65 for a family, which comes out to $780 per year for family coverage. By contrast, 73 percent of Americans spend less than $500 a year in medical expenses, according to a recent article in The New York Times.
Wal-Mart's own figures show that 38 percent of the company's workers spent more than one-sixth of their income on health care last year. During that same period, the company earned $10.5 billion in profit on $285 billion in sales.
Nearly half of the children of the company's 1.3 million employees in the United States are on Medicaid or have no health insurance at all, according to an internal memo made public by the watchdog group Wal-Mart Watch.
The leaked memo showed Wal-Mart being more concerned with combating critics and bolstering its public image rather than with providing adequate health insurance to its workers.
The memo suggested reframing the Medicaid debate as "everyone's problem, not just Wal-Mart's."