Wal-Mart CEO : Business Is At "Tipping Point" On Health Care Reform

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/3880



Wal-Mart CEO : Business Is At "Tipping Point" On Health Care Reform - 08/04/06

By Jesse Russell

Will it be business and not government that solves the healthcare crisis? Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scoot suggested just that on Charlie Rose's PBS show. Scott, who's company is repeatedly attack for not offering decent wages and reasonable healthcare options for employees, said he believes the country is at a "tipping point" when it comes to addressing the issue. Scott added that business won't be alone in pushing the government towards a solution, he said labor will also play a major role.

[rfranklin]

1. They will be dragged kicking and screaming to a single-payer system...

Business has never solved any social program in the history of the world.

[Hekate]

2. It'd make more sense for business to pressure gov't into single payer...

As more and more big businesses claimed to be going overseas because of exorbitant employee health insurance costs, it occured to me that it would make sound business sense for them to start pressuring the government to finally do its job and create single payer non-job-dependent universal health care.

Wal-Mart, for instance, is practically a nation unto itself, so it wields huge influence on the government..

Whatever the feds would need to collect from megacorps in taxes to cover this plan would be a bargain compared to the runaway costs imposed by Blue Cross and the rest.

It would pit one kind of big business (health insurance corps.) against another (everyone else) ironically. But that's the way of business these days anyway, so why should they care?

Just some random thoughts.

Hekate

[rurallib]

3. Businesses will simply quit being the conduit for healthcare in this

country. Then whatchya gonna do?
Most people don't realize that healthcare is not a mandatory benefit supplied by businesses. And it makes no sense for a business to be the healthcare supplier. They spend a lot of time and money on something that literally adds nothing to their bottom line.
Since supplying healthcare as a benefit is not mandatory, I look for a landslide of businesses to stop offering it as a benefit. So one way or another I look for employers to get out of the HC business. This is exactly what the neocons want. They want every individual to be an independent contractor who will negotiate their own individual contracts with the likes of WalMart.
Who will then pick up the huge gap in healthcare then? Watch for folks dying in the streets.

[LincolnMcGrath]

5. Florida is loaded with 'independant contractors'

When I was livin and working down there in 01-02 and working construction, the independent drywall contractors would meet in the parking lot EVERYDAY to see who would go the lowest in the quest to rebid the days work, day after day after day after day.

[whistle]

4. Wal Mart's solution, put a150,000 employees on Medicare

...just like how they put thousands on food stamps and thousands more on social security. Fu*k WalMart, the irresponsible corporate criminal network!

[blm]

6. Edwards is hounding WalMart on pay and Kerry's hounding them on healthcare

Looks like WalMart's been getting tag teamed by two honest brokers.