MD Ends Corporate Welfare
This is something I came across this morning, and finally got around to posting this evening. Wal-Mart says it’s critics can’t cut it in the marketplace. “We were once a small business too,” they say. Of course most small business don’t have taxpayers footing the bill for their employees health care, which is what happens in states where Wal-Mart has the highest number of employees on welfare, and hundreds of employees on Medicaid. (See, you only think you’re paying lower prices.)
Now it looks like Wal-Mart may be facing the end of corporate welfare in Maryland, since lawmakers in that state approved a law that would essentially require the company to ante up on health insurance for its employees. The bill doesn’t specifically target the company, as it requires any employer with more than 10,000 employees to spend at least 8% of their payroll on health benefits.
Maryland lawmakers yesterday approved legislation that would effectively require Wal-Mart to boost spending on health care, a direct legislative thrust against a corporate giant that is already on the defensive on many fronts nationwide.
“We’re looking for responsible businesses to ante up . . . and provide adequate health care,” said Sen. Thomas M. Middleton (D-Charles), the Finance Committee chairman, as the Senate approved the measure with a majority wide enough to survive an anticipated veto. A similar bill has cleared the House of Delegates, and legislators expect to reconcile their differences easily.
Lawmakers said they did not set out to single out Wal-Mart when they drafted a bill requiring organizations with more than 10,000 employees to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on health benefits — or put the money directly into the state’s health program for the poor.
The bill doesn’t have the governor’s support, but the number of votes in the Senate is sufficient to overide a veto, and members of the Maryland House—which fell one vote short of the number needed to overide a veto—believe they will have the necessary votes should the governor veto the bill.
Here’s a question. Is it unreasonable to expect large corporations to provide good health benefits to their employees? If you ask me, it’s not only reasonable, it’s right. Otherwise, it’s the taxpayers who end up making up the shortfall, which makes Wal-Mart’s prices not so low when you factor in the cost of providing healthcare for its employees at taxpayer expense. And it’s not like the bill will affect small businesses either. A company with 10,000 employees hardly qualifies as a small business.
If you ask me, it looks like Maryland is on the right track to doing right by its citizens. It’s just a shame that it takes legislation to get Wal-Mart to do what any responsible corporation should do anyway