Maryland OKs Wal-Mart health care bill

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Schizo

Guest
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bcp

bcp

In My Opinion
The problem with this whole thing is that it wont be a few years at the most before it trickles down to the small business also.
When that happens more small business will fold up leaving more people out of work.

The government does not belong in that aspect of a business, the people that work for Wal-Mart do so out of choice, they knew going in that the benifits were weak. Change should have been through employee/employer debate, not forced legislation.

I would not be suprised to see Wal-Mart pull their distribution center plans from Maryland and move them to Virginia or Delaware because of this. over 1000 jobs lost to the state with one quick vote.
Im a person of spite, and if I owned Wal-Mart I would think real hard about pulling my stores out of Maryland completely. I would make sure my personal bank account was in order for a retirement of my family, and I would prepair to pull from any state that tried the same thing.

In other words, I would shut down Wal-Mart out of spite. Then the lawmakers in Maryland could all pat themselves on the back before the went back into session to figure out what to do with the thousands of now un-employed citizens in their state. With any luck, the other states would take notice and think twice before stepping into my accounting office.
 
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Bruzilla

Guest
There are a couple of other ongoing strings that are dealing with these subjects, but I'll add here that the benefits that Wal Mart offers are not "weak." That's a distortion of the facts that the labor union folks have been pushing for years in their drive to force Wal Mart to allow unions.

Wal Mart's policy is that people should shop around and find the best bargain based on quality and price. But that's not how people shop for their healthcare. People usually will pay any price that they are charged because there's a social ignorance about shopping around for lower-cost providers. Wal Mart provides excellent coverage for low-mid tier cost providers, but they do not offer great coverage for top-tier cost providers. Putting it in local terms, if you want to go to St Mary's County Hospital you're going to get more of your costs covered than if you opt to go to Georgetown University Medical Center. Wal Mart's approach, and I agree with it, is that people should shop as carefully for their healthcare as they do for everything else.
 
Oz

Oz

You're all F'in Mad...
Basically, the average wage at the WalMart Distribution Center in Somerset county would have been $2 per hour HIGHER than the current wage over there. 1000 jobs were to be created, which will now go to Delaware.

Our ultra-liberal State Senator, Roy Dyson voted voted for this bill. O'Donnell, Bohanan and Wood all voted against it.

When you start making employers pay 8% of total wages in health care, the workforce, and consumers will definitely feel that.

I can only imagine what that would cost an EMA, Wyle Labs and smaller companies in our area as this bad public policy trickles down.
 
Larry Gude

Larry Gude

Strung Out
The problem...

The problem with this whole thing is that it
Click to expand...

...is that it is fascism.
Or National Socialism.

Take your pick. Either way it is evil and un-Constitutional and wrong.
 
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czygvtwkr

Guest
Its also interesting that Wal-Mart is the only company that this law will actually apply to. I guess Wal-Mart bashing is being embraced as safe publicity for state politicians.

How does Wal-Mart's health care compare to Target's, Giant's or K-Marts?
 
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Bruzilla

Guest
Oz said:
I can only imagine what that would cost an EMA, Wyle Labs and smaller companies in our area as this bad public policy trickles down.
Click to expand...

You probably won't have to imagine long. The problem with these "targeted" attacks on companies is that it isn't long before the "if they get goodies why can't we!" syndrome kicks in, and when that happens the MD government won't rollback the WalMart law, they'll just expand the law to cover more and more companies as more and more employees complain. I predict it won't be too long before the fairness crowd gets this law expanded to cover most every employer in MD.
 
Ken King

Ken King

A little rusty but not crusty
PREMO Member
What confuses me is that the legislation will make those companies with over 10,000 employees pay into a State Fund the difference of the amount if they do not provide at least 8% of the payroll amount for employee healthcare benefits. But what I have found intriguing is what will be done with the money deposited into this fund, other then invest it, will be to use it to support the operation of the Maryland Medical Assistance Program. How does this help the employees of these large companies? How many employees of these companies qualify for this assistance? I suspect very few if any, and the State, Federal, and many others are already exempt. Large non-profit organizations only have to provide 6% towards their employee healthcare. This seems very discriminatory and will probably be challenged for Constitutionality as to fair and equal treatment under the law.

It looks to me like just another special tax scheme to facilitate social programs by targeting those that already create a major tax base for the state that in all likelihood will respond by reducing their operations to only 9,999 employees to remain exempt from this tax. The result being the reduction of the overall number of employees paying taxes into the system that would be contributing a hell of a lot more through income tax if they were still employed then by this targeted fine.

Read the bill here: http://mlis.state.md.us/2005rs/bills/sb/sb0790t.pdf
 
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czygvtwkr

Guest
The money will probably be used as raises for the state legislature.

I think the best thing that Wal-Mart can do is accept the law but either pull out of Maryland or reduce to 9999 employees.

I saw on the news that only 3 employers in the state have that many employees and two of them are federal agencies.

Oooo Walmart could contract out work.....you know just how the government claims to have less employees....
 
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