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Jul
3
Goodbye Wal-Mart, Hello Target: Wal-Mart Backs Obamacare
Filed Under Conservative Side of the Story, Socialized Medicine
- Scott Miller
Guess I’m exclusively shopping Target for now on. Wal-Mart, a company I’ve defended from the libs in the past, has just backed Obamacare in a classic case of crony capitalism. This from the Wall Street Journal:
Wal-Mart Backs Drive to Make Companies Pay for Health Coverage
WASHINGTON — In a major break with most other large companies, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Tuesday told the White House that it supports requiring employers to provide health insurance to workers, a centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s effort to provide near-universal coverage to Americans.
The support of Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, could give momentum to one of the most-contentious aspects of legislation taking shape in Congress to fix the health system. To help pay for covering the 46 million uninsured, lawmakers have proposed mandating that all but small employers provide insurance for workers or help pay for it.
Lobbies for large corporations have opposed the idea. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has fought such a mandate, saying it would prompt companies to cut jobs, lower wages and possibly drive them out of business. Wal-Mart — which provides insurance to employees and wants to level the playing field with companies that don’t — on Tuesday delivered a letter to President Obama taking a different stance.
“We are for an employer mandate which is fair and broad in its coverage,” said the letter, signed by Wal-Mart Chief Executive Mike Duke. Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, also signed the letter, along with John Podesta, who led President Obama’s transition team and is chief executive of the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning think tank.
The National Retail Federation, the industry’s main lobby, said it was “flabbergasted” by Wal-Mart’s move. “We have been one of the foremost opponents to employer mandate,” said Neil Trautwein, vice president with the Washington-based trade group. “We are surprised and disappointed by Wal-Mart’s choice to embrace an employer mandate in exchange for a promise of cost savings.”
Mr. Trautwein said an employer mandate is “the single most destructive thing you could do to the health-care system shy of a single-payer system,” under which the government handles health-care administration. The mandate “would quite possibly cut off the economic recovery we all desperately need,” he said. The group believes forcing companies to provide insurance will raise costs for its members.
Folks, don’t be fooled for one second about Wal-Mart’s motivations. They see this as a way to drive their competition out of business, get rid of the fights with the unions over their healthcare coverage, and reduce their costs by shifting the burden of healthcare for their employees to the taxpayers.
Goodbye Wal-Mart, hello Target!
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