01-14-2006, 08:07 AM
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| Kansas to also Force Walmart to Pay-up?
http://www.hutchnews.com/news/region...art011406.html Quote:
Bill aims at Wal-Mart health insurance
Some Kansas legislators want largest retailer to aid workers' health plans
By Sarah Kessinger
Harris News Service
TOPEKA - Kansas is among 30 states where groups of legislators want to require Wal-Mart to spend more on employee health insurance.
Rep. Geraldine Flaherty, D-Wichita, filed such a bill this week and hopes to get a hearing in House Commerce and Labor Committee soon.
She said that when Wal-Mart or other large employers fail to adequately insure low-wage workers, then taxpayers must pick up the tab for Medicaid to cover their families.
Similar bills are popping up in states reeling from a rapid growth in Medicaid programs that insure low-income residents.
The Kansas bill mirrors one that Maryland legislators passed Thursday. Their action was an override of Gov. Robert Ehrlich's veto of the bill last spring.
Opponents say such legislation unfairly singles out the world's largest retailer and that it's become a political and labor union issue, largely pushed by Democrats.
Flaherty filed the bill on the suggestion of a Democratic women's group in Sedgwick County.
Sen. Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, said Friday he was caught off-guard by the number of e-mails he's received from Kansans statewide in support of the bill.
"They're coming from all over Kansas. I'm assuming that they are working-class people and they very well may be union members because this is a big union issue too," Hensley said.
But other lawmakers hadn't heard a thing.
Sen. Mark Taddiken, R-Haddam, who has two Wal-Mart stores in his north-central Kansas district, said he balks at the idea of taking on a particular business.
"I know the issue. They hire part-time help instead of full-time. They do it in part to avoid paying benefits to full-time employees. From a business standpoint it's probably shrewd."
Taddiken said he'd heard only positive comments from area Wal-Mart employees.
"What I've heard is they like their company and are proud of it."
The bill focuses on employers with a staff of 10,000 or more. It mandates that if a company doesn't dedicate at least 8 percent of its total payroll to health insurance, the company must pay the difference to the state to help cover Medicaid costs.
Flaherty said the bill doesn't name Wal-Mart, but the company is likely to be the only one affected because, she believes, other large employers are adequately covering their employees.
"As long as we have an employer-based health care system in Kansas, we think every employer should be providing that benefit," Flaherty said.
"This seemed to be a place to start because Wal-Mart affects so many Kansans."
Wal-Mart has 20,136 employees in Kansas, according to the company's Web site.
Nate Hurst, Wal-Mart spokesman on governmental issues, was not in his Washington, D.C., office on Friday and could not be reached for comment on the bill.
The Web site also states that the company offers health insurance plans to its full- and part-time employees.
In Kansas, full- and part-time employees earn an average hourly wage of $9.86, the site says. Wal-Mart currently has 35 supercenters, 18 discount stores, three smaller stores and six Sam's Clubs in the state and a distribution center in Ottawa.
| My advice would be for everybody write, call, or email their state senator and/or representative and tell them to vote in favor of making Walmart pay their fair share like everybody else.
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