Blaming Wal-Mart
State Senator Tim Burchett says something stupid:
During WATE’s TennCare town hall meeting Tuesday night, state Sen. Tim Burchett (R-Knoxville) said Wal-Mart shares some of the blame for the TennCare crisis.
“A large percentage of their employees are on TennCare and I’d like to see them use some of their profits to support some of their people, and things like that,” Burchett said.
Support it by paying payroll and income taxes? Support it by collecting sales taxes? They already do that. A Wal-Mart rep responds:
6 News talked with a company spokesman several times Wednesday. He issued a statement: saying, “The company does not encourage associates to apply for public assistance, nor does Wal-Mart design plans to be subsidized by it.”
Sympathetically, the reporter chimes in with:
But what about Scotty? Remember, he was already on TennCare. Does Wal-Mart encourage its employees to stay on public assistance, as opposed to enrolling in the company’s plan?
July 21st, 2005 at 11:06 am
Big surprise, giving something away for “free” spikes the demand.
Usually the politicians are advertising social programs. If they are so concerned about the number of people using it, maybe they should consider cancelling it.
July 21st, 2005 at 12:40 pm
The fact of the matter is tht the two best ways to get health insurance is via your employer or via the state. I don’t know how many people have had to get individual coverage, but it can get hairy. The littlest thing can deny you coverage and if you have anything serious, you pretty much can’t get health coverage.
So having said that, WalMart could provide decent health care coverage for its employees like most other employers (including the people who employ most of the people reading this blog), but they instead let the public subsidize it for them.
Also, uninsured people raise the cost of health insurance for everyone else. How? When insured people show up at the emergency room and can’t pay, the costs must be born by the people who can (i.e. the insured). This raises the cost of insurance. WalMart not providing healthcare coverage to its employees raises the costs for those employers who do.
July 21st, 2005 at 12:46 pm
Manish, Wal-Mart does offer insurance. But, as ravenwood said, why pay for it when you can get it free?
Wal-Mart shouldn’t pay for it anymore than some small business should.
July 21st, 2005 at 4:32 pm
WalMart offers insurance thats very expensive from what I understand and yes you and Ravenwood are right..why pay for it when you can get it for free? Clearly WalMart is doing that.
Wal-Mart shouldn’t pay for it anymore than some small business should.
So who should pay for it? Should your company have to pay for it, because their premiums have risen due to a larger number of uninsured folks welching on their bills?
July 22nd, 2005 at 7:19 am
WM offers insurance for its full-time staff… not so sure about the ones they keep under 32 hrs/week to be sure they don’t qualify for full time benefits…
Of course, even full-timers will be cutting into a paycheck that is small enough to qualify employees for TennCare in order to pay for that insurance…
So, yeah. I think it’s fair to say that Wal*Mart is helping keep the TennCare roles overly full.
July 22nd, 2005 at 9:47 am
IIRC, WalMart is a publicly traded company. And while I haven’t read their filings with the SEC, I’d bet that they have a clause within those that specifies they will work to return as much money to the stockholders as possible. All within legal and ethical parameters, of course.
Now, if I were a stockholder and WM began offering benefits beyond what is necessary to secure the employees they need to staff their stores, I’d be hopping mad. The Directors and Officers of WM are expected to operate WM in a fashion that is profitable (amonst other things). Spending money that doesn’t need to be spent would result in a lawsuit, I’m sure.
If WM begins having trouble retaining people at their current pay / benefits scale, then it would be prudent to adjust as necessary. But they have a legal obligation to return as much to the stock holders as possible. “Over-paying” for a service is not a wise move.
And, IMO, “over-paying” employees is what got the automotive industry in the bind it has today. They paid too much to the UAW when they were making money hand-over-fist. And it has blown their competitive capability out of the water. Downstream, WM could find itself burdened with too much in the form of responsibilities for it’s margins, leaving people who are relying on it – for retirement and dividends – with nothing.
(Full discloure – I hate WalMart, never shop there, and don’t own stock.)