You know that, and I know that, but the Dems will use class warfare to destroy Capitalism in order to assure that everyone is equally miserable, so let us see what accommodations can be made that works for all parties involved.

And Wal Mart should have to give their employees health care? Is that really an employers job? Many places do these days, and that’s certainly nice of them, but it’s not their obligaton. IT IS YOUR OWN JOB to provide health care. If you can’t afford it, then you must get the skills to get a better job with better income, quit buying big screens and SUV’s and ring tones and save some money. I know it’s expensive but we always seem to afford the other things we want…how about we start living within our means and take responsibility for our own health care and retirement and quit expecting the federal government to solve our problems.

And no, I am not one of those evil rich people saying this. I make less money than most of you do…but I understand how to live within my means and I understand what my responsibility is as a human…to provide for myself and my family and not suck off the government and my boss for freebies.

How’s that for progressive thought?

And now we see why Wal-Mart wants to join with you.”

This:
“individuals have a responsibility to maintain and protect their own health.”

Sounds just like a conservative talking pioint taken from a Luntz or Gingritch handbook. Talk about framing a debate.

Comment by All-American Hero

I’m sorry… you’re working with Iran to get them to help make peace? Why not ask them to sponsor the new holocaust memorial?

I’m sorry, I just can’t stop laughing.

But thanks for the laughs, I really needed them.

Now you can stop kidding.

Wait, you’re not kidding?

*dies*

Comment by VerbalKint

I am not generalizing at all. I am talking about family members and others I have personally talked to that did these things themselves or worked with people they saw do it every day.

Comment by verucha slayer

So what? Many of us make clear we are not voting for hilary and that just might influence others that see that we are not right wing wackos yet want something better than hilary. She is all name recognition. Not inspiring at all and in these dangerous times I dont see it as being responsible trying to prove how far America has come by electing a woman or black man for that matter. I think it is time to unite the country if that is possible which means someone or some team that is not just running on a “rock star” platform. This isnt a popularity contest. Then again if any woman or black man actually had a vision that we could all buy into then that would probably be fine but neither hilary nor obama seem to have that.

Comment by chimpeach

Yes they would. The unions are WEAK because of this corruption. If it was straightened out many more people would join them. As it stands the unions are heading even further down.

Wal-Mart, for instance, has compiled one of the worst records of employee health coverage of any American employer; Intel sees healthcare as a market to be exploited, not as a fundamental human right to be guaranteed.

Your partnership with them shows the hallmark of their thinking. Rather than working for a social guarantee for medical care for all Americans, you join these companies in stating: “individuals have a responsibility to maintain and protect their own health.”

This statement seems straight-forward, but is in fact quite pernicious, carrying within it the idea that health is an individual concern–and that indiviuals do and should assume the risk for their healthcare.

And now we see why Wal-Mart wants to join with you. When major employers shed risk and push it onto individuals, they make more money. Yes the employer-based system of health coverage is broken; but it can only be dismantled within the kind of SinglePayer health system that has been shown to work in every other industrialized nation in the world–not within a situation where it is pushed entirely onto individuals to work with.

I don’t need to enumerate the reasons for SinglePayer healtchare: it is the only system proven to work, it is the only system that is patient-centered instead of market-based, it is the only truly universal system, and it is the only affordable system of healthcare.

SinglePayer health systems, such as a “Medicare for All” set-up, achieves its cost-savings and focus on patients by removing the bad actors from our health system: the insurance companies who are in the business of denying care, not providing it. The major private insurers waste approximately one-third of their care dollars on overhead (marketing, bureaucracy, profit, and political contributions). We can save hundreds of billions of dollars a year by doing away this waste–something that your plan cannot address in any way as you are focused on working with the current system of private insurance, and working together with partners dedicated to protecting private insurers.

The good news here? Americans are way ahead of their leaders and groups like the Center for American Progress on this issue. Recent polls have shown that 89% of Americans want “fundamental” reform to the health system and 56% of Americans want to do away with the current system and replace it with a system “like Medicare.”

I invite readers to visit http://www.SinglePayer.com, a project of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, and join the nurses’ campaign to ensure a single standard of medical care to all people.

I understand what you are saying. I used to work for the finest US company there was. Anybody remember Ken Olsen’s DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation)? Companies like that would have been ideal partners. But the brachiocapitalism of today has ruined them. I’m afraid one has to work with whoever is left. I don’t know Costco, but you’re posts as far as I remember them are really well informed, so you’re most probably right and I’m not.

I’d like to see them partner with some corporations that have either a good record, or at the very least no record, when it comes to keeping their workforce healthy and helping their families, too. Wal-Mart’s involvement in this just seems like a sick joke. Costco might be a good one to work with. Somebody mentioned the auto manufacturers. It’s definitely in their interest to get healthcare costs under control. I would hope that they’re smart enough to realize that now.

WalMart has tried to establish itself in Germany and they have drawn out again. It took them maybe five minutes to show their colours and they wouldn’t accept german labour laws. I have no illusions about that company.

Neither is CAP or SEIU. Talking to the corporations on healthcare, doesn’t make them necessarily complicit in the corporations other doings.

Understand if I am very skeptical and down right doubtful of this ‘allegiance’… Because I am.

I have no doubt, John, that you’re like Bill Clinton when it comes to trying to find compromise. I appreciate that, and on the surface think this is a brilliant theory. I just think, once the reality of an unscrupulous Corporate America enters the equation, that you’ll end up as sorry as Bill must be for some of the deals he made with the Devil.

I wish you the best, and truly hope I am wrong.

Wal-Mart is the most anti-union retailer in the country. They closed a store and pulled out of town when the employees voted to unionize. They try to bully their employees to keep them from even voting on unions. They hire more employees to work fewer hours so they can avoid paying for healthcare. In fact, here’s some of their lousy record on healthcare:

# Waiting Too Long to Qualify. The Wal-Mart average for full-time workers to qualify for benefits is six months, compared to the retail average of 2.7 months and the average waiting period for large firms (200 or more workers) of 2 months.

More info at http://walmartwatch.com/issues/health_care/

Where do you see in that a company that’s concerned with working people having affordable healthcare? I don’t know what their motives are beyond good PR, but I don’t trust them.

The Center for American Progress has already said that it will maintain it’s principles and not become a Wal-Mart whore; that’s enough for me.

Chill!

-Xbot