West Virginia Legislators Introduce Fair Share Health Care
Posted on January 17, 2006 by webteam
From the Associated Press, via today’s Huntington Herald-Dispatch:
Taking aim at West Virginia’s largest private employer, state lawmakers are following the lead of neighboring Maryland with a bipartisan bill that would make Wal-Mart pony up more money for its workers’ health care costs.
The West Virginia Fair Share Health Care Act would require any employer with 10,000 or more workers in the state to spend at least 8 percent of its wages for health care costs. Those that don’t must pay the difference to the state’s Medicaid insurance program for the poor.
With 12,054 employees at 35 locations across the state, including four Sam’s Clubs, only Wal-Mart appears to fall under the bill’s provisions. The bill does not mention Wal-Mart or any employer by name.
“The largest employer in the state doesn’t provide what most people feel is an adequate level of health care,” said Sen. Dan Foster, D-Kanawha and a physician, a co-sponsor of the bill.
“It increases the amount of uncompensated care, and that increases the costs for everybody.”…
West Virginia ranked sixth in the nation for its share of uninsured adults, at 23.5 percent or 264,000 residents, according to a 2005 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation study. Another 22 percent rely on Medicaid for their health care.
Lawmakers have asked the state Department of Health and Human Resources for figures showing how many Wal-Mart employees and families are uninsured or rely on government-funded health care programs. Those figures were not immediately available Monday…
Other co-sponsors of Friday’s bill include Sen. Charles Lanham, R-Putnam, and Sen. Evan Jenkins, D-Cabell and executive director of the West Virginia State Medical Association. Four Democratic delegates introduced a House version of the measure (HB4024) on Monday. The Maryland legislation had been studied by Mountain State lawmakers during their monthly interim meetings last year.
The AFL-CIO and allied groups critical of the retail giant, including Wal-Mart Watch, have championed the new Maryland law. They vow to push for similar legislation in at least 30 other states. Lawmakers in neighboring Kentucky, where Wal-Mart has more than 32,000 employees, also introduced a version of the bill last week.
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Click here to see what other states are picking up the health care tab for Wal-Mart’s employees.
