New Facts About WAL-MART

[rucky]

This pretty much speaks for itself...

WakeUpWalMart.com released a shocking new study of Wal-Mart’s health care crisis entitled, "America Pays, Wal-Mart Saves." Among the key findings are:

Wal-Mart health care spending actually dropped in the latest public filing with the Internal Revenue Service (from 2003-2004);

In 2005, nearly 300,000 Wal-Mart workers and their family members depended on taxpayer-funded public health care at a total cost to American taxpayers of $1.37 billion.

In 2005, Wal-Mart failed to provide company health care to 57% of its workforce, leaving over 775,000 Wal-Mart workers and their families without company health care;

The Wal-Mart health care crisis will cost taxpayers an estimated $9.1 billion over the next five years;

Full Report At: http://wakeupwalmart.com/images/americapays.pdf

[IA_Seth]

1. kinda makes the savings look paltry eh?

Thanks for the post!

[linazelle]

2. Friend of mine, lost her job, now works at Walmart temporarily--

She had to go to the ER last week, for food poisoning. Guess who footed the bill?

[donco6]

3. And I'm looking at a 16.8% increase in premiums.

The only way they could have seen a drop in cost would be to have dropped more people from coverage - maybe by cutting hours to a point below qualification for benefits.

Crooks.

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. I guess walmart is ahead of the curve when it comes to taking advantage

of universal health care.

[acmejack]

5. That's why four of the Waltons were in the ten richest people in America.

A billion saved is a billion earned you know.

[xchrom]

6. so then part of walmart's profits -- if not a majority

are as result of you and me and generous donations to corporations?

[fiveleafclover]

7. Just saw this

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060223/ap_on_bi_ge/wal_mart_health_care

Where's the catch on this, I wonder? Because Walmart isn't going to give away anything without the guarantee of something in return.

The corporate line will be: "Don't blame us when our prices go up."

[onethatcares]

8. Why don't they start their own clinics?

they've applied to be a banking member, they certainly have enough money, it would seem that an in-house medical facility would be in order. Or would they act like sick call in the military and send everyone back to work? Whoops, they already have one, I apologize.

[rucky]

9. kick

[Triana]

10. I will never EVER...

...set foot in one of their stores again. Not unless it's a dire emergency.

parasitic bastards.

[Mabus]

13. I went to one last weekend

first time in ages. I can't remember when I last went there. My nephew* wanted to go. He was looking for an indoor basketball hoop. I took him there at his insistence. To my relief Wal-Mart didn't have one and we left. Later he that day he came up to me and said he remembered that Wal-Mart was a bad place to shop. I asked him what he meant and he said Wal-Mart exploits its workers, sells sweatshop clothes and hurts the economy. I asked him how he knew and he said his mom told him. She just got back from Central America where she spent a month doing work with orphanages and saw some former sweatshop workers up close. Anyway, he was freaking a little. He was worried I'd tell his mom that he had gone to Wal-Mart and worse, he wanted to go there. I told him that she would understand. I talked to her later and she got a laugh out of it. She said there's some new kid at school who's mom would live at Wal-Mart if she could and that her son had been hanging out with him. She wasn't surprised he asked to go to Wal-Mart because his new friend acts like it is the repository for everything. On the up-side, my nephew knows first hand that Wal-Mart doesn't have everything and he was disappointed in his first trip there. Hopefully his disappoint helps reinforce that it isn't a place to shop and he won't want to go there again.






* He's actually one of my best friend's girlfriend's son. They were together for 8 almost years before they split up a few months ago. I've known the kid since he was 18 months old and he's a nephew to me. I helped take care of him when his mom was in Central America. This kid has three moms (his real one, me and his step-mom) and three dads (his real one, my husband and my friend). My family treats him like one of the family too.

[Triana]

14. lucky kid...and smart too

sounds like he has a great support structure and his head screwed on straight! You seem to have all done quite well with him! :)

[Mabus]

15. We're all very proud of him

and his "sister", my friend's daughter, who is about the same age. They've grown up together.

I wanted to tell him about Wal-Mart but didn't know how my friend's ex wanted to handle it. Since he's with her most of the time she would be the one having to answer his questions. I learned my lesson after spending the day with him and calling sugar "white death."

[SoCalDem]

11. $4 plastic shoes & $5 jeans cost more than it would seem, eh?

:(

[Danascot]

12. An idea that is gaining traction

in the corporate world is that the lack of a federally funded national healthcare system, like the rest of the first world countries have, is hurting the competitiveness of US companies.

It looks like Wal-Mart is ahead of the trend by divesting itself of the cost of providing healthcare to its employees.