It's hard to offer anything save tepid support to Wal-Mart's "generous" extension of health benefits to its part time workforce. For the average Wal-Mart "team member" (or associate, or whatever this week's consultant jargon is) who works 24 hours a week and makes around $10,000 a year, a $3,000 deductible not, shall we say, feasible. Indeed, such folks are, if they qualify, far better off going on Medicaid, which offers better benefits at a lower cost, than Wal-Mart's insurance. Were Medicaid a better program that simply covered folks up to 250% of the poverty line and then subsidized on a sliding scale up to 350%, the choice would be easy. As it is, many Wal-Mart employees probably don't fall into Medicaid's weird categories, or don't know they do, so this might be a minor improvement for them. Yippee, the corporate welfare state proves its worth once again.
It's time to scrap this thing, folks.
