Fix the Bill

Fix the Bill

A new report, Health Care Reform and Walmart: What the Senate Health Care Reform Bill Means to the Country’s Largest Employer, outlines how that the Senate Health Care Bill, as written, fails to hold Walmart responsible for the health care costs of its 1.4 million employees.

The report examines the Senate bill by looking at its impact on America’s largest and most irresponsible private employer. As written, the employer responsibility provision—“Free Rider”—would provide no overall health care cost savings because it would:

• Provide little or no incentive for Walmart to provide insurance to more workers or provide better care to its workers;
• Continue the dependence of tens of thousands of Walmart employees and their families on federal and state subsidies for Medicaid and SCHIP, and encourage Walmart to have even more workers and their families dependent on these taxpayer-funded programs;
• Make few, if any, Walmart workers eligible for tax credits to purchase better insurance through the health insurance exchange;
• Force low-income Walmart workers into high-deductible, company-provided insurance;
• Incentivize the hiring of a largely part-time workforce, and encourage reducing workers’ hours as a way to reduce health care costs.