Liberal though I am, I'm not sure making WalMart pay at least 8% of their payroll is necessarily a good idea. It's the supply-side that needs to be addressed, not necessarily the demand-side. Making WalMart pay more may just cause their insurers to charge more, in which case you're simply shifting money from WalMart to an HMO without improving anyone's benefits.
If you're going to interfere with a market, make sure the ultimate effect you will have is the one you want.
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Talk about spin... Do these two paragraphs not say almost the exact same thing (except about Walmart vs. the nation)?
"Clark said more than three-fourths of its 1.3 million U.S. employees had health insurance coverage, either through the company, a spouse or a government program."
"Nationwide, labor leaders said, more than a quarter of workers in large companies do not get employer-based health insurance coverage. They say a growing number of uninsured workers have been forced to turn to government programs such as Medicaid for coverage."
So what we're saying is, approximately 3/4 of employees are covered, 1/4 are not. Some of those in the grey area are either covered by spouses or on a government program like Medcaid. It's the same statistics, just phrased differently. Why not just say "Walmart's figures are on par with the national averages for large companies, but while Walmart thinks they're great, labor leaders think they're unacceptable."
I am seriously so tired of reading nothing but spin. CNN's headlines for the day, "Bush: Alito rocks." Two hours later, "Bush: Dude, Alito just totally scored on that question." Two hours later, "Bush: See, I told you Alito rocked." Even distilling someone's words into the cold, hard facts seems to be seen as partisanship nowadays, so instead all you read are articles full of "he said, she said" quotes without anyone actually pointing out the real facts.
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