Maryland first to OK 'Wal-Mart bill'

[Crazy Dave]

The Maryland General Assembly became the first state legislature in the nation Thursday to approve legislation forcing Wal-Mart (WMT) to pay more for its employee health care, potentially paving the way for other states to follow suit.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2006-01-12-walmart-maryland_x.htm

Hopefully more states will pick up on this because it makes you wonder, if a poor communist dictatorship like Cuba thinks it's citizen's deserve free health care, why does a wealthy nation like ours think its citizens don't?

[Nicole]

1. Good for Maryland

I hope others follow quickly.

[SoCalDem]

2. The problem that no one talks about is this..

Employers should NOT be the ones to deliver health care to their employees. It gives them literally life and death control over them.

Health care access should be a RIGHT to ALL citizens, just like it is in most "enlightened" countries.

The system we have is hopelessly broken.

The whole idea of employer health care came about as a fluke to start with.. When there were wage and price freezes, employers saw this as a clever way to still give raises and hold on to valued employers and to woo new employees.

It actually has harmed the country, because once "someone else" is taking care of something, it's easy for the government to wash their hands of the subject entirely.

There are millions of people who are being held hostage by their employer-offered health insurance.

Most people over the age of 35 has a chronic illness of some kind, or they may have a child with one, so people are NOT free to change jobs. They have little if any bargaining power, because they NEED that coverage.

People have seen their raises eaten up by their share of the medical plans for YEARS.. (Get a $25 raise, and see your share of health insurance go up $40)..

The time has come too, where a TON of people are kept just below the level where they would even qualify for any coverage, and even though the company "offers" it, it's usually only affordable to the full-timers. I have no figures to back this up, but I would guess that in most companies, the part-timers and temps far outnumber the full-timers.

This is the dirty little secret.

I know a young person whose take home pay ends up being around $350 a week, and for her to participate in the "plan", her share would be $300 a month ..She's barely making enough to survive, and has always declined the coverage. Her boss can puff up his chest and say what a good guy he is for offering it, but if the employees are not being paid enough to afford it, where's the benefit?


The beast we need to "kill" is the haphazard method of "medical coverage" for our citizens.

[Crazy Dave]

3. >>It gives them literally life and death control over them.

The same with our government when it comes to social security. Every year it stays broken, failing more and more year after year and the politicians love scaring the elderly (as I've seen it personally) saying that if you don't vote for them the other guy is literally going to take your checks right out of your mailbox.

Quit using my family members for your kicks assholes! Find a new campaign gimmick MF'S!!!

That's about my only non-liberal stance. I wish they had a 50/50 option. Pay half into something like government savings bond that you personally own (and no one can threaten to take them away) and the other half into the general fund or into similar private accounts for lower income and elderly individuals. I don't trust either side when it comes to my income and you never know which side will have the check book 20 years from now. Social security, run by or government loses money. My private accounts run by myself makes money. I'll be close to being a millionaire in another 20 years with my savings and the returns I'm getting, people counting solely on our flawed system will be below poverty level.