Their Prices Are Low Because You're Paying Their Costs with Your Taxes

Wal-Mart and other large employers are not providing their employees with health care coverage provides readers insights into important issues. Wal-Mart and others, compared to competitors who do provide health care benefits, are undercutting their competition by shoving these costs onto taxpayers. This is bad for their employees, harmful to business competition, and hurts taxpayers.

Wal-Mart and employees of similar large businesses work hard yet receive less reward. Their Medicaid health options are often not as good as health care available to employees who work elsewhere. It is irresponsible for one of the state’s largest employers to be so uncaring to the health of those who devote their careers to their employers. People end up physically suffering from poor accessibility to health care, and this is wrong by any measure.

It is unfair to competitors who are responsible towards their employees. These caring employers are finding themselves undercut in prices by Wal-Mart. Many of these competitors are small businesses who are the fabric of our economy, and they are being driven out of business by the uncaring larger businesses like Wal-Mart. This creates a growing unfairness to taxpayers who then find they are increasingly footing the bill for costs Wal-Mart refuses to pay.

Last year, legislation was proposed for the Health Department to compile and release information on emergency room costs for care provided to employees of large corporations like Wal-Mart who do not have health care. I believe many will be shocked to learn how much the policies of Wal-Mart and others are being passed along to them. For the good of our taxpayers, and especially for the benefit of people who work hard and deserve better, we need to make large employers more responsible for providing benefits to their employees.