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The Washington Post has an interesting article arguing that "once vilified for its stingy health benefits, [Wal-Mart] has become an unlikely leader in the effort to provide affordable care without bankrupting employers, their workers or taxpayers in the process."Is it true? Sort of. Wal-Mart's health care offerings have become better. Waiting times are down, plans are more affordable, and they're doing some genuinely innovative stuff in health management. It's certainly a far cry from the days when a leaked memo showed that they were trying to cut health care costs by making all employees push carts under the theory that the ill and unhealthy would then have to quit.But nor are we that far along: The bulk of Wal-Mart's success in enrolling employees comes from offering cheaper plans that cover less. More of their employees are "insured," but it's not clear how many are actually protected.This isn't really Wal-Mart's fault. Or, if it is Wal-Mart's fault, it shouldn't be. Wal-Mart is a low wage employer. Their employment model is built for high turnover and low profits-per-worker. It's true that their practices could be better. But they will never be great. There's no economic reason for them to be great: They rely on a profit model based around low labor costs. And it works for them. They make profits. That's their job.Workers should not have to rely on employer goodwill or business strategy for medical care. They should not have to hope H. Lee Scott Jr. decides a benevolent corporate image is worth more than low labor costs. The problem with Wal-Mart isn't that they do a bad job offering health care. It's that they're in the position of offering it at all. To some degree, they get this. Even in an article meant to tout their successes, there's an obligatory line saying, "Wal-Mart itself warns that in a global market with a weakened economy, it cannot -- or will not be able to -- accept annual health-care increases of about 8 percent indefinitely."The question, though, is why they're not more aggressive about ending their role in health care entirely. That, after all, is what legislation like the Wyden-Bennett plan would do. No one would care about Wal-Mart's health care plan because Wal-Mart wouldn't be responsible for offering a health care plan. But they don't advocate such policies, presumably because their health care spending is lower than, say, Sears' health care spending, and that gives them a slight competitive advantage. Which just goes to underscore the problem: Health care should not hinge on employers.