Taxpayers burdened by health-care costs, senator says

BY KAREN LINCOLN MICHEL
Press-Gazette Madison bureau

MADISON — The discount-retail giant Wal-Mart would be forced to reimburse the state of Wisconsin for insurance costs of 18 percent of its workers enrolled in public health care under a bill introduced Tuesday in the state Senate. Sen. Dave Hansen, D-Green Bay, said Tuesday that he authored the bill because taxpayers should not have to fund health-care coverage for the state’s largest employers, such as Wal-Mart — which recorded a $10.3 billion profit for the 2005 fiscal year.

“Our bill is basically saying that we’re not against the employees getting BadgerCare and Medical Assistance, but with the kind of resources that companies like Wal-Mart have, they had better either provide affordable quality health care or pay the state,” said Hansen, whose bill targets businesses with more than 10,000 employees.
But Wal-Mart warns such a law would hurt the business climate in Wisconsin.

“Today the number is 10,000 employees, but tomorrow it could be 5,000,” said Dan Fogleman, a Wal-Mart spokesman based at corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. “This should scare the business community in Wisconsin that legislators are putting forth this type of legislation.”

A similar bill passed in Maryland, Fogleman said, but was vetoed by the governor “because it was not good for the business climate or the business community.”

Fogleman said Wal-Mart in January will begin offering health-insurance premiums that are 40 percent to 60 percent lower than current coverage plans. He said the options range from $23 a month for single coverage to $65 a month for family coverage. He added that a single-parent family could get coverage for $37 a month under the new plan.

“That’s 50 cents a day for children on that particular plan,” he said. “We’re doing all we can to make it affordable and accessible.”

A study released two weeks ago by the Wisconsin Citizen Action Fund reported that 4,722 Wal-Mart employees in Wisconsin and their 1,906 dependents are enrolled in public health programs at a cost of nearly $14 million annually. An estimated 3,673 of Wisconsin Wal-Mart employees had no coverage at all, the study found.

The report also named Aurora Health Care, the McDonald’s fast-food chain and Walgreen pharmacies as large employers in Wisconsin whose workers are enrolled in state programs such as BadgerCare, family Medicaid, Medicare Savings programs, and Medicaid for the elderly, blind and disabled.

As for the bill’s chance of passing, a spokesman for Senate Majority leader Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, said he is doubtful.

“I would be very surprised if Dale would be inclined to move a bill forward which would have the state putting health-care requirements on private business,” said Todd Albaugh, communications director for Schultz.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the citizen action fund says low-income workers should not be forced to turn to public aid for health-care coverage by the profitable companies that employ them, especially in a time when Wisconsin has been ranked as a state with some of the highest physician prices in the nation and when the state’s uninsured population jumped 17 percent in 2004 compared to the previous year.

“There is a social cost, and we think that the very least Wal-Mart can do is pay back the state of Wisconsin for their employees that are on state programs,” said Nathan Sooy, Northeast Wisconsin director for the action fund in Green Bay.