At Walmartfacts.com — a website set up by the retail giant — you’ll learn the company had $285.2 billion in sales last year, opposes strengthening child labor laws in Connecticut and hides the cover of Marie Clair magazine with a sheet of plastic. One statistic you won’t find: how many of its employees are forced to enroll in Medicaid for health coverage.
Inquiring minds want to know. Yesterday, Sen. Ted Kennedy, Sen. John Corzine and Rep. Anthony Weiner introduced the Health Care Accountability Act which would require “states to report annually on the number of workers relying on taxpayer-funded health programs.” Kennedy said “[p]rograms like Medicaid provide a critical safety net for low-income women and children, the disabled, and the elderly and shouldn’t be a profit center for large companies like Wal-Mart.”
Kennedy and the other bill sponsors estimate that 600,000 of Wal-Mart’s 1.3 million workers do not have company insurance. As a result “[e]very worker in America is paying a part of their taxes to pay for Wal-Mart.”
For the latest, check out walmartwatch.com.