Wal-Mart Backs Obama’s Health Care Reform

Perhaps sensing a shift in the Force, Wal-Mart has broken with most other large companies and told the Obama administration it supports requiring employers to provide health insurance to their workforce.

The White House is fighting an uphill battle with Congress to reform health care, and big business has opposed the reform bill from the get-go. Its lobbying arm, The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is fighting furiously against the plan, saying it would cost jobs, result in lower wages and perhaps lead to worse coverage if companies “trade down” among health plans to cut costs (though this argument makes no sense if they already are offering health coverage).

The National Retail Federation, the industry’s main lobby, was clearly caught off-guard, saying it was “flabbergasted” by Wal-Mart’s move. Fuming how this was “the single most destructive thing you could do to the health-care system shy of a single-payer system,” and how such a mandate “would quite possibly cut off the economic recovery,” the NRF is now left with trying to reassure workers that the retail industry isn’t more concerned about profits.

Wal-Mart hasn’t always been so progressive in its policies, having fought with organized labor over efforts to unionize the company’s work force. But in 2007, the company joined with SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, the country’s largest, in calling for affordable health care for all Americans by 2012. Wal-Mart has improved its health-care benefits, cutting the time before workers are “vested” for benefits in half for both full- and part-time employees, as well as offering more plans. Approximately 52% of its 1.4MM million U.S. employees are covered by company-provided insurance, up from 46.2% three years ago. The retail industry average is 45%.

Analysts say the company is looking to level the competitive playing field by having competitors who don’t cover their workers forced into doing so. Another reason for the company’s sudden embrace of the Obama solution is the plan currently making the rounds in the Senate that would require a more expensive health care plan for companies with low-wage workforces. Most Republicans oppose any employer mandate, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce insists Wal-Mart’s shift won’t change any minds among its members.

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