Wal-Mart: Saving You Money While Insuring Their Workers? Oh, Puh-Leeze

The only thing that made me laugh harder and more sadly than the recent spate of pro Wal-Mart commercials where they tell us the average family saves $2,300 year by shopping at its stores is this new "health care" report from the whack jobs at Wal-Mart telling us that they'd LOVE to insure all their workers but those damned, thoughtless workers just won't take their craptastic plan (the one that on TV insists that every Wal-Mart sales associate can get coverage for about $1 a day).

Before we get to health care, let's discuss that "saving you $2,300" bit. OK. But how much has your Wal-Mart cost you? I've seen estimates that indicate that for every dollar consumers save at Wal-Mart, they spend that much if not far more in the kinds of crap Wal-Mart brings along: failure of downtown businesses, unemployment (in part because Wal-Mart demands cheap shit and cheap shit gets made in China by political prisoners and by 8-year-olds in Malaysia rather than unionized garment workers in Indiana, etc.), health care for the associates Wal-Mart won't cover, etc.

Now here's some of this Wal-Mart health insurance coverage fantasy from WaPo:

About 90 percent of Wal-Mart employees have health-care coverage, but 43 percent do not get it from the mammoth retailer, relying instead on benefits from a spouse, federal programs or even their parents, according to an internal survey the company made public yesterday.

Wal-Mart employs more than 1.3 million people in the United States, making it one of the country's largest employers. The company surveyed more than 200,000 workers during the fall open-enrollment period for health benefits, the retailer's first effort to capture such data as it faces criticism from labor unions that accuse it of paying low wages and skimping on health benefits.

..."I don't believe that our goal is ever to convince someone to move off of Medicare or their retirement plan . . . to Wal-Mart health-care coverage," said Linda M. Dillman, who oversees risk management and benefits for the retailer. "Our goal is to ensure our associates have access to health care and that it's affordable."

Wal-Mart said about 47 percent of its employees have enrolled in the company's health plans. About 10 percent have no insurance.

The company has been accused of not offering enough coverage for employees and of shifting health-care costs to the government. In Maryland, labor unions helped pass a bill last year that would have required Wal-Mart to spend at least 8 percent of its payroll on health care or pay into a state fund for the poor. A state court struck down the law over the summer.

Anti-Wal-Mart groups yesterday criticized the health-care survey, saying it highlighted the undesirability of the company's plans.

"Rather than be embarrassed at health-care failures, Wal-Mart is trying to brag that leaving over half of their employees and families without Wal-Mart health care is an improvement," said Chris Kofinis, spokesman for Wake-Up Wal-Mart, which is funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

Oh, Ms. Dillman's right alright: Wal-Mart sure doesn't WANT its workers using its health care. Better that every American taxpayer funds what little Wal-Mart workers DO get so stupid people can buy toilet paper three cents off.

Shopped at Wal-Mart just once. Never again. I'll go without the products before I buy from scum that suck the blood from the marrow of not only this country but the world.