Md. forces Wal-Mart to spend more on health

[waggy]

Originally posted by: Chadder007

Originally posted by: waggy
wow how can this be legal?

as others said health care is a benefit not a right. They agree to work at walmart for $x an hour. not $X+insurance. IF they want the benefit of having paid insurance go get a job that has it. It is not walmarts responsibility to do it for them.

I work at a Hospital and we have a lot of their employees come into the ER for colds and crap. What are we supposed to do for all of that lost money when all of the companies around pay so little and won't help with healthcare for their employees?? This is a major problem everywhere and I have no idea of a good solution for it honestly. Do one thing and it hurts another. Should healthcare be socialized into government totally? It would be nice to go back to the old days to where you could pay for a visit to the doctor out of pocket without insurance help.

again this is NOT walmarts fault. It is not walmarts responbility to give there workers higher wages or health care. IF the person working at walmart can not afford either then maybe they need a 2nd job or a better job.

Health insurnce is a benifit not a right. I busted my ass in college so i could get a job for a good pay and insurance. I'm not the smartest person around and if i can do it they can do.

Maybe the goverment should look at the failing education system and health system instead of trying to place the blame on others.

 

[TheAdvocate]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Approximately 5% of Wal-Mart's work force gets insurance through government programs. The national average for retail stores is 4%.

4% of my firms workforce is about 4 people.

5% of WalMarts workforce is what? 50,000 people (just guessing)?

Stop using BS % statistics to justify your point. Stats can be manipulated. The point is, there are certain operational costs and in/efficiences of operating at that size, and this is one of them.

Put it another way - do you have any idea how cripping it is for Wal-Mart to have even a measely extra 1% of its workforce call in sick on a given day? It's huge at the global cost/efficiency level, especially if those shifts have to be covered via OT pay.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: daveymark

you're kidding, right? The insult to capitalism is the dems attempting to strongarm walmart, not walmart making a sound business decision to keep profits in the black

I thought my comment was pretty easy to understand. It had nothing to do with this law.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: TheAdvocate

Originally posted by: waggy
perhaps they could. but who's place is it to say they have to?

Have to? No one has said that they have to. But it is a damned ethical responsibility for the company and definitely in its best financial interests to ensure a healthy, happy, DEPENDABLE workforce.

The alternative is Upton Sinclair. No f'ing thank you.

If you havent noticed there are a LOT of unskilled ignorant people out there (thanks to the great US education system!). IF there was a shortage of labor then i can see walmart wanting healthy, happy workforce. as it is if someone can not get to work because sick walmart can fire them and rehire someoen very easy. is this wrong? nope walmart is in business to make the owners money.

posted bye TheAdvocate

the goverment really has not right ot say that they have to have health insurance.

They're not. The givt action here is to stop Wal-Mart from passing operating costs onto taxpayers, which is pure corporate greed. Wal-Mart has taken advantage of a loophole (ironically displaying the same type of freeloading behavior most of their proponents decry) to supplement part of their cost of doing business through govt tax dollars, which SHOULD offend the hell out of you.

You're looking at this all wrong when you talk about benefits, etc. On the scale that Wal Mart operates, a healthy labor force that routinely comes in to work, can perform its duties, and can be relied on is a MAJOR cost consideration, and speciifically, takings teps to ensure that they have such a work force is a cost of doing business. The partisan talking head supply side arguments that overlook simple PRACTICAL cost considerations are so blatantly narrowminded and idealogical without any regard for reality/practicality... it's stupid. No one who has ever run a large business would make these type of obtuse arguments.

if you want that then make it a law that EVERY business has to spend %8 on healthcare. even those that do NOT spend even %1 now.

Not that healthcare is any right. So any law such as this will be shot down when challenged.

YOu want real reform? how about fixing the education system and health system. lets place the blame where it really needs to be. Not with company that is within the law and already paying more on health care then the avarage.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: TheAdvocate

Originally posted by: Queasy

Approximately 5% of Wal-Mart's work force gets insurance through government programs. The national average for retail stores is 4%.

4% of my firms workforce is about 4 people.

5% of WalMarts workforce is what? 50,000 people (just guessing)?

Stop using BS % statistics to justify your point. Stats can be manipulated. The point is, there are certain operational costs and in/efficiences of operating at that size, and this is one of them.

Put it another way - do you have any idea how cripping it is for Wal-Mart to have even a measely extra 1% of its workforce call in sick on a given day? It's huge at the global cost/efficiency level, especially if those shifts have to be covered via OT pay.

And? I'd say it isn't very crippling at all since Wal-Mart given that they are the dominant player in the retail industry.

 

[Metron]

Originally posted by: piasabird
What about k-mart, Target, and other businesses?

Why not do this for McDonalds?

I would just take this to the supreme court and tell them to go to hell.

It is one thing for the state to say all businesses have to do this or all businesses that hire X number of employees have to provide better health care. However, you cant just pick one company and target it like this.

This is just leftist agenda.

I disagree. MSNBC conveniently fails to report this fact, but the law targets any company who employs over 10,000, not just Walmart. Walmart is just the ONLY large company NOT providing these benefits to their employees.

All the other companies of this size provide a reasonable standard of health care.... Walmart is the only large company affected, because they are too cheap to do the right thing.

Do you realize that Walmart overprices it's medical benefits package, and then encourages it's employees to file for Welfare, MedicAid, and WIC? The total annual cost of this is $1.5 trillion dollars to US taxpayers.

Corporations should not be able to shirk their responsibilities to the employees and pawn that off to the state and local governments.

I brought up this very point in a previous flame of Walmart.

Why? Walmart is throwing their weight around, pushing the "slippery slope" the other way, forcing health care costs onto the worker and the state. As others point out, CostCo is able to provide reasonable benefits, and so does EVERY OTHER LARGE COMPANY in Maryland... except Walmart.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: waggy

If you havent noticed there are a LOT of unskilled ignorant people out there (thanks to the great US education system!). IF there was a shortage of labor then i can see walmart wanting healthy, happy workforce. as it is if someone can not get to work because sick walmart can fire them and rehire someoen very easy. is this wrong? nope walmart is in business to make the owners money.

Don't blame American education, it produces plenty of intelligent, successful people. Blame lack of ambition and intelligence.

 

[TheAdvocate]

:sigh: I give up. The political idealists are too good at getting message out to an inexperienced electorate that has learned to digest every media soundbyte they get without any regard to personal experience and practicality.

Supply side economics are always right. It is definitely in a company's best interests to chew through the potential workforce with impunity, both monetarily, and from a PR standpoint. I am convinced. Practical, real world experience doesnt matter, only dogged partisan idealism does.

Also, corporate welfare and cost burden shifting to the taxpayers is a GOOD thing. No business should EVER have to pay for its own facilities, local economic infrastructure, and least of all, it's workforce. Those lucky ****** should be thankful they have jobs at the abestos meatpacking plant... and when they die off, we'll just find another $2/hr slave, because the supply is completely inexhaustible, right? Just ask McD's which has trouble finding laborers at $5.15hr.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Metron
Do you realize that Walmart overprices it's medical benefits package, and then encourages it's employees to file for Welfare, MedicAid, and WIC? The total annual cost of this is $1.5 trillion dollars to US taxpayers.

I'm gonna call BS on that, I'm pretty sure the annual budget for welfare programs is only a few hundred billion. It wasn't too many years ago that our entire budget was only $1.5 trillion.

 

[Metron]

Originally posted by: TheAdvocate

Originally posted by: waggy
perhaps they could. but who's place is it to say they have to?

Have to? No one has said that they have to. But it is a damned ethical responsibility for the company and definitely in its best financial interests to ensure a healthy, happy, DEPENDABLE workforce.

The alternative is Upton Sinclair. No f'ing thank you.

the goverment really has not right ot say that they have to have health insurance.

They're not. The givt action here is to stop Wal-Mart from passing operating costs onto taxpayers, which is pure corporate greed. Wal-Mart has taken advantage of a loophole (ironically displaying the same type of freeloading behavior most of their proponents decry) to supplement part of their cost of doing business through govt tax dollars, which SHOULD offend the hell out of you.

You're looking at this all wrong when you talk about benefits, etc. On the scale that Wal Mart operates, a healthy labor force that routinely comes in to work, can perform its duties, and can be relied on is a MAJOR cost consideration, and speciifically, takings teps to ensure that they have such a work force is a cost of doing business. The partisan talking head supply side arguments that overlook simple PRACTICAL cost considerations are so blatantly narrowminded and idealogical without any regard for reality/practicality... it's stupid. No one who has ever run a large business would make these type of obtuse arguments.

Well stated... Walmart is motivated by pure corporate greed. They are abusing their position as the largest retailer IMHO.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Metron

Originally posted by: piasabird
What about k-mart, Target, and other businesses?

Why not do this for McDonalds?

I would just take this to the supreme court and tell them to go to hell.

It is one thing for the state to say all businesses have to do this or all businesses that hire X number of employees have to provide better health care. However, you cant just pick one company and target it like this.

This is just leftist agenda.

I disagree. MSNBC conveniently fails to report this fact, but the law targets any company who employs over 10,000, not just Walmart. Walmart is just the ONLY large company NOT providing these benefits to their employees.

Wal-Mart is the only company in the state of Maryland that employs over 10,000 people. So when the Maryland legislator wrote this bill, they were specifically targeting Wal-Mart. Further proof that this bill is targeted at Wal-Mart is the fact that Maryland democratic legislators were taking swipes at Wal-Mart while they were working to get the law passed.

 

[Metron]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Metron
Do you realize that Walmart overprices it's medical benefits package, and then encourages it's employees to file for Welfare, MedicAid, and WIC? The total annual cost of this is $1.5 trillion dollars to US taxpayers.

I'm gonna call BS on that, I'm pretty sure the annual budget for welfare programs is only a few hundred billion. It wasn't too many years ago that our entire budget was only $1.5 trillion.

WAL-MART Costs Taxpayers $1,557,000,000,00 to Support its Employees

"The Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce estimates that one 200-person Wal-Mart store may result in a cost to federal taxpayers of $420,750 per year - about $2,103 per employee. Specifically, the low wages result in the following additional public costs being passed along to taxpayers:
$36,000 a year for free and reduced lunches for just 50 qualifying Wal-Mart families.
$42,000 a year for Section 8 housing assistance, assuming 3 percent of the store employees qualify for such assistance, at $6,700 per family.
$125,000 a year for federal tax credits and deductions for low-income families, assuming 50 employees are heads of household with a child and 50 are married with two children.
$100,000 a year for the additional Title I expenses, assuming 50 Wal-Mart families qualify with an average of 2 children.
$108,000 a year for the additional federal health care costs of moving into state children's health insurance programs (S-CHIP), assuming 30 employees with an average of two children qualify.
$9,750 a year for the additional costs for low income energy assistance."


The total figure is based on the average $420,750 per-store figure, multiplied by 3700 (the approximate number of stores currently in the United States).

Source: Rep. George Miller / Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, "Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart" [PDF file], February 16, 2004.

 

[TheAdvocate]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: TheAdvocate

Originally posted by: Queasy

Approximately 5% of Wal-Mart's work force gets insurance through government programs. The national average for retail stores is 4%.

4% of my firms workforce is about 4 people.

5% of WalMarts workforce is what? 50,000 people (just guessing)?

Stop using BS % statistics to justify your point. Stats can be manipulated. The point is, there are certain operational costs and in/efficiences of operating at that size, and this is one of them.

Put it another way - do you have any idea how cripping it is for Wal-Mart to have even a measely extra 1% of its workforce call in sick on a given day? It's huge at the global cost/efficiency level, especially if those shifts have to be covered via OT pay.

And? I'd say it isn't very crippling at all since Wal-Mart given that they are the dominant player in the retail industry.

That's why they obsess over the inventory of Pop-Tarts and whether they have 5 or 6 boxes on the shelf at the store in kalamazoo and they spent billions on a computer nerve center to trim pennies here and there because coprorate wide those pennies are worth millions.

You have no concept of the macro economics of running a global retailer.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: spidey07
man what BS. I'm sure this can't be legal.

Yes, man what BS that giant Companies like Wally World force the work force to be working poor with no health insurance.

That's real American :roll:

 

[JEDI]

"Md. forces Wal-Mart to spend more on health"

wtfbbq?

so why not force the mom + pop stores to gives health insurance also?!

TOTAL BS!

so is walmart moving out of MD?

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: TheAdvocate

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: TheAdvocate

Originally posted by: Queasy

Approximately 5% of Wal-Mart's work force gets insurance through government programs. The national average for retail stores is 4%.

4% of my firms workforce is about 4 people.

5% of WalMarts workforce is what? 50,000 people (just guessing)?

Stop using BS % statistics to justify your point. Stats can be manipulated. The point is, there are certain operational costs and in/efficiences of operating at that size, and this is one of them.

Put it another way - do you have any idea how cripping it is for Wal-Mart to have even a measely extra 1% of its workforce call in sick on a given day? It's huge at the global cost/efficiency level, especially if those shifts have to be covered via OT pay.

And? I'd say it isn't very crippling at all since Wal-Mart given that they are the dominant player in the retail industry.

That's why they obsess over the inventory of Pop-Tarts and whether they have 5 or 6 boxes on the shelf at the store in kalamazoo and they spent billions on a computer nerve center to trim pennies here and there because coprorate wide those pennies are worth millions.

You have no concept of the macro economics of running a global retailer.

Actually, I do. And again, I think that Wal-Mart has a better idea than either of us since they are the ones actually running this show and being very successful doing so. Any company worth its salt is going to factor in the cost of employee sick time in the cost of doing business.

 

[Metron]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: Metron

Originally posted by: piasabird
What about k-mart, Target, and other businesses?

Why not do this for McDonalds?

I would just take this to the supreme court and tell them to go to hell.

It is one thing for the state to say all businesses have to do this or all businesses that hire X number of employees have to provide better health care. However, you cant just pick one company and target it like this.

This is just leftist agenda.

I disagree. MSNBC conveniently fails to report this fact, but the law targets any company who employs over 10,000, not just Walmart. Walmart is just the ONLY large company NOT providing these benefits to their employees.

Wal-Mart is the only company in the state of Maryland that employs over 10,000 people. So when the Maryland legislator wrote this bill, they were specifically targeting Wal-Mart. Further proof that this bill is targeted at Wal-Mart is the fact that Maryland democratic legislators were taking swipes at Wal-Mart while they were working to get the law passed.

What is your source for this contention? Walmart is the ONLY company? I don't think so...

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: spidey07
man what BS. I'm sure this can't be legal.

Yes, man what BS that giant Companies like Wally World force the work force to be working poor with no health insurance.

That's real American :roll:

I didn't realize that Wal-Mart execs were going around in public whipping people to stand in line to signup for jobs at Wal-Mart. Man, they are evil!

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: Metron

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: Metron

Originally posted by: piasabird
What about k-mart, Target, and other businesses?

Why not do this for McDonalds?

I would just take this to the supreme court and tell them to go to hell.

It is one thing for the state to say all businesses have to do this or all businesses that hire X number of employees have to provide better health care. However, you cant just pick one company and target it like this.

This is just leftist agenda.

I disagree. MSNBC conveniently fails to report this fact, but the law targets any company who employs over 10,000, not just Walmart. Walmart is just the ONLY large company NOT providing these benefits to their employees.

Wal-Mart is the only company in the state of Maryland that employs over 10,000 people. So when the Maryland legislator wrote this bill, they were specifically targeting Wal-Mart. Further proof that this bill is targeted at Wal-Mart is the fact that Maryland democratic legislators were taking swipes at Wal-Mart while they were working to get the law passed.

What is your source for this contention? Walmart is the ONLY company? I don't think so...

The bill was written and targeted very specifically at Wal-Mart only. Go read up on it in the Washinton Post, Washington Times, or Baltimore Sun if you really don't believe it.

 

[TheAdvocate]

Originally posted by: Queasy
Actually, I do. And again, I think that Wal-Mart has a better idea than either of us since they are the ones actually running this show and being very successful in passing the normal costs of operating an efficient, dependable labor force onto the american taxpayer.

Fixed. And I completely agree. They know exactly what they're doing, and they're VERY good at it.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Metron

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: Metron

Originally posted by: piasabird
What about k-mart, Target, and other businesses?

Why not do this for McDonalds?

I would just take this to the supreme court and tell them to go to hell.

It is one thing for the state to say all businesses have to do this or all businesses that hire X number of employees have to provide better health care. However, you cant just pick one company and target it like this.

This is just leftist agenda.

I disagree. MSNBC conveniently fails to report this fact, but the law targets any company who employs over 10,000, not just Walmart. Walmart is just the ONLY large company NOT providing these benefits to their employees.

Wal-Mart is the only company in the state of Maryland that employs over 10,000 people. So when the Maryland legislator wrote this bill, they were specifically targeting Wal-Mart. Further proof that this bill is targeted at Wal-Mart is the fact that Maryland democratic legislators were taking swipes at Wal-Mart while they were working to get the law passed.

What is your source for this contention? Walmart is the ONLY company? I don't think so...

My mistake. They are the only ones that employee over 10,000 people and fall below the threshold set by the Maryland legislator. Link

The Maryland bill would force firms with more than 10,000 in-state employees to spend at least 8 percent of their payrolls on workers' health insurance plans or make compensatory payments to the state. Only three other Maryland employers have more than 10,000 workers on their payrolls -- Johns Hopkins University, Northrop Grumman Corp. and Giant Food Inc. -- and they already meet or exceed the 8 percent threshold. Apparently, only Wal-Mart, with about 15,000 full- and part-time employees in Maryland, does not; thus the bill applies uniquely to Wal-Mart.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Metron

WAL-MART Costs Taxpayers $1,557,000,000,00 to Support its Employees

"The Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce estimates that one 200-person Wal-Mart store may result in a cost to federal taxpayers of $420,750 per year - about $2,103 per employee. Specifically, the low wages result in the following additional public costs being passed along to taxpayers:
$36,000 a year for free and reduced lunches for just 50 qualifying Wal-Mart families.
$42,000 a year for Section 8 housing assistance, assuming 3 percent of the store employees qualify for such assistance, at $6,700 per family.
$125,000 a year for federal tax credits and deductions for low-income families, assuming 50 employees are heads of household with a child and 50 are married with two children.
$100,000 a year for the additional Title I expenses, assuming 50 Wal-Mart families qualify with an average of 2 children.
$108,000 a year for the additional federal health care costs of moving into state children's health insurance programs (S-CHIP), assuming 30 employees with an average of two children qualify.
$9,750 a year for the additional costs for low income energy assistance."


The total figure is based on the average $420,750 per-store figure, multiplied by 3700 (the approximate number of stores currently in the United States).

Source: Rep. George Miller / Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, "Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart" [PDF file], February 16, 2004.

I see the word "assuming" in there a lot. And it says "may result in a cost to federal taxpayers of..." Those numbers are purely hypothetical. Our annual budget in 2004 was $2.3 trillion. Do you really think 2/3 of that went to social services for Walmart employees?

 

[TheAdvocate]

Someone needs to read some Mazlowe at it pertains to opearting a company. That's not just touchy feely stuff.

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: Metron

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: Metron

Originally posted by: piasabird
What about k-mart, Target, and other businesses?

Why not do this for McDonalds?

I would just take this to the supreme court and tell them to go to hell.

It is one thing for the state to say all businesses have to do this or all businesses that hire X number of employees have to provide better health care. However, you cant just pick one company and target it like this.

This is just leftist agenda.

I disagree. MSNBC conveniently fails to report this fact, but the law targets any company who employs over 10,000, not just Walmart. Walmart is just the ONLY large company NOT providing these benefits to their employees.

Wal-Mart is the only company in the state of Maryland that employs over 10,000 people. So when the Maryland legislator wrote this bill, they were specifically targeting Wal-Mart. Further proof that this bill is targeted at Wal-Mart is the fact that Maryland democratic legislators were taking swipes at Wal-Mart while they were working to get the law passed.

What is your source for this contention? Walmart is the ONLY company? I don't think so...

My mistake. They are the only ones that employee over 10,000 people and fall below the threshold set by the Maryland legislator. Link

The Maryland bill would force firms with more than 10,000 in-state employees to spend at least 8 percent of their payrolls on workers' health insurance plans or make compensatory payments to the state. Only three other Maryland employers have more than 10,000 workers on their payrolls -- Johns Hopkins University, Northrop Grumman Corp. and Giant Food Inc. -- and they already meet or exceed the 8 percent threshold. Apparently, only Wal-Mart, with about 15,000 full- and part-time employees in Maryland, does not; thus the bill applies uniquely to Wal-Mart.

If Wal-Mart has any spine it would be pretty entertaining to watch what those crooks in Annapolis would do when 15,000 people hit the bricks at one time.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: spidey07
man what BS. I'm sure this can't be legal.

Yes, man what BS that giant Companies like Wally World force the work force to be working poor with no health insurance.

That's real American :roll:

yeah they have the right to go get another job if they do not want like the benifits that walmart has offered. IF they do not have the education or skills needed for a better job they can go to college and get them.

IF they won't then that is there right.


to everyone saying that walmart is greedy well DUH! WTF do you think they are in business? for the fun of it? the same reason poeple (most anyway) go to college. so they can get a better paying job.

Walmart has the responbility to pay whatever they agree to when someone is hired. if they hire someone at $7/hr with no benifits and that is ok with both parties what business is it of yours? if you do not like that these people then need to go on walfare, wic (wich is a diffrent program anyway) etc then why not complain about the lazy people that refuse to help themsevles.

why the bashing of a legal company that is providing a good service and a good price?

IF you want to force a company to pay ou t%8 then by all means do it. but make it for ALL companys in the state. lets see how well MD does then.