February 23, 2006

Wal-Mart To Expand Health Benefits For Workers

In a speech to the National Governors Assoc. in DC on Sunday, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott will announce plans to allow thousands more of its workers to purchase Wal-Mart health insurance plans and will press government leaders and business to start work immediately to overhaul to the country's health care system.

Beginning in April, Wal-Mart will allow part-time workers to more quickly buy into the company's health plan. It will automatically designate children of those part time employees as beneficiaries of their parents' plans. And it will expand the availability of its least expensive plan to at least half of all Wal-Mart associates by the beginning of 2007.

Scott will say that Wal-Mart plans to build 50 community health clinics in underserved communities near Wal-Marts.

According to prepared remarks, Scott will say that "During our most recent open enrollment period, we signed up more than 70,000 associates who didn't have our health insurance before. Fifty thousand of those working men and women were previously uninsured. And this is just a start In the weeks ahead, we're going to take significant steps to make our health benefits even more affordable and accessible to the working families we employ."

Wal-Mart's decision comes after months of public pressure by union-backed groups to shoulder more of the health care burden of its employees. Last week, the New York Times revealed that Wal-Mart managers were pressing Scott through an internal bulletin board to make changes. Maryland passed a law requiring Wal-Mart to pay more for health care, but similar efforts in other states have fallen short.

Wal-Mart has been considering these changes for months. The company's bottom line is sound and some analysts expect a profitable '06 after a dismal '05.

Posted at 11:30 AM

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