|
 |
 |
|
Wal-Mart backs health benefits mandate
With Wal-Mart’s endorsement of a legal requirement that employers
provide health benefits to their workers, the nation’s largest employer has broken from the business community.
The so-called employer mandate is adamantly opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business and virtually every major business trade association in Washington. But the backing of Wal-Mart, which employs about 2 million people, could give a big boost to President Obama and Congress’s effort to levy such a requirement on companies.
“We are entering a critical time during which all of us who will be asked to pay for health care reform will have to make a choice on whether to support the legislation,” says the letter, signed by Wal-Mart President and CEO Mike Duke, SEIU President Andy Stern and Podesta.
“This choice will require employers to consider the trade off of agreeing to a coverage mandate and additional taxes versus the promise of reduced health care cost increases.”
Obama's healthcare reform czar praised Wal-Mart and SEIU for their letter.
"It is significant that Wal-Mart, one of the country’s largest employers, and SEIU, one of the country’s major unions, have joined together to call for the enactment of health reform that will lower costs and assure quality and affordable healthcare for all Americans," White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle said in a statement. "The president is committed to signing health reform legislation built on those principles this year.”
The decision by Wal-Mart to break away from the Chamber and its ilk marks the first visible crack in the business coalition on healthcare reform.
The Chamber issued a blistering denunciation of Wal-Mart's action Tuesday, saying the company is trying to undermine other retailers through anti-competitive means.
"Some businesses make the decision to use the government as a weapon against their competition," James Gelfand, the Chamber's senior manager for health policy, said in a statement. "We do not agree with this method -- the government is a blunt instrument and taxes have extreme unintended consequences, negatively affecting the economy as a whole. We also recognize that momentum is moving against an employer mandate. The business community will be stepping up our advocacy as necessary, too."
The cooperative action with SEIU and the liberal think tank also symbolizes the progress Wal-Mart has made in mending its relationships with organized labor and the political left.
SEIU and other unions have assailed Wal-Mart for years for its workplace policies, wages and fringe benefits, arguing that the behemoth retailer was making enormous profits on the backs of low-wage workers.
But the company has taken concrete steps in recent years to expand health coverage for its employees, though sometimes through controversial means such as encouraging workers to sign up for government programs. Wal-Mart now says that more than 90 percent of its employees have health coverage, though many receive it from other sources.
At the same time, Wal-Mart successfully fought back against state laws that would have required the companies to provide health insurance. Maryland actually enacted such a law, but a federal court overturned it in 2006.
Wal-Mart’s endorsement of a nationwide employer mandate could be seen in part as the fruits of Stern’s unusual courtship of the company, which began around the same time as the repeal of the Maryland law.
Over the last few years, Stern forged a relationship with H. Lee Scott Jr., then Wal-Mart’s president and CEO and currently chairman of the firm’s executive committee of the board of directors, and with Duke. Wal-Mart, SEIU and the Center for American Progress are also all members of Better Health Care Together, an umbrella group of corporations and unions pushing for reform.
But SEIU and Wal-Mart remain adversaries on other issues, such as laws that would facilitate union organizing, and SEIU remains a member of Wal-Mart Watch, a coalition that is highly critical of the company’s workplace policies.
Lending its voice of support to the employer mandate — one of the most controversial issues in the healthcare reform debate — could gain Wal-Mart an ally in the White House and a public-relations boost.
Supporters of the employer mandate consider it an essential component of healthcare reform. The aim is to maintain coverage for the 160 million people who already receive health benefits at work while compelling more employers to provide health insurance, thereby reducing the number of uninsured people.
Under proposals being considered on Capitol Hill, employers that do not offer health insurance to their workers would have to pay into a government fund for enrolling people in other coverage. All but the smallest companies would have to comply, though lawmakers have not specified what size of firms would be exempt.
Opponents, such as the Chamber, contend that a mandate would place an extraordinary burden on private companies. “This would be harmful to businesses of all sizes, to the economy, and to American workers,” the Chamber wrote in a letter to senators in June.
“[A]ny alternative to an employer mandate should not create barriers to hiring entry level employees,” the letter says. The Senate Finance Committee has been weighing a policy under which companies would have to pay for a portion of the cost of their workers’ Medicaid benefits or other federal assistance.
Wal-Mart would be particularly affected by such a requirement because its workforce consists largely of low-wage employees.
In addition, the letter says any employer mandate should not be one-size-fits-all: “We are for shared responsibility. Not every business can make the same contribution, but everyone must make some contribution.”
More broadly, the letter notes that the escalating cost of healthcare weighs more and more heavily on the budgets of businesses and the government alike and calls for aggressive steps to rein in costs.
In addition to recommending reforms to how medical providers are paid for the services they perform, Wal-Mart, SEIU and the Center for American Progress endorse a proposal to create a legal “trigger” that would automatically trim government health spending when it rose faster than a specified annual target.
This story was updated at 4:50 p.m.
Most Viewed RSS Feed »
