Rep. Mary Beth Walz has proposed House Bill 1704, which would require large employers to spend at least 8 percent of payroll on health care for their employees. Employers who didn't meet the threshold would have to pay the difference into a state fund established to pay for Medicaid, the health-care plan for the poor.
The Monitor complains that if the bill passes here and in other states, "the nation would wind up with a de facto employer-based health-care system." We already have an employer-based health-care system. The vast majority of Americans of working age with health insurance have it because their employers provide it. Most Americans without health insurance are working, but their employers offer no plan, or they cannot afford the plan offered.
Wal-Mart is undermining our employer-based health-care system. Wal-Mart is able to undercut other retailers, in part, because it skimps on health care. As the largest retailer and employer in America, Wal-Mart has the market clout to present its competitors with a stark choice: reduce benefits or go out of business.
"The real problem," you wrote, "is the seemingly unstoppable double-digit annual increases in health-care costs."
But let's look at causes. We know that much of the increase in health costs is due to cost-shifting - the costs of the uninsured are passed on to those with insurance. When Wal-Mart fails to provide decent health-care benefits to employees, and when it forces its competitors to cut benefits to their employees to remain competitive, the ranks of the uninsured grow, and the cost-shifting and the spiral in health insurance premiums gets worse.
"Picking on Wal-Mart may feel good,"according to the Monitor, "but won't help much." This is a weak argument. We know that the health-care system is complex. There is no magic bullet that will solve all the problems. But if forcing Wal-Mart to play on a level playing field with Costco and others will help a little, shouldn't we do it? Isn't it better than doing nothing?
The Monitor says the bill targets a "moderate number of companies (and) meddles with the marketplace." All government regulation affects the free market. That's why we have regulation - to prevent the free market from exploiting child labor, allowing unsafe working conditions and polluting our environment, among other things. We should add to that list employers who threaten to destroy our employer-based health-care system.
I salute Rep. Walz for sponsoring House Bill 1704 and wish her well in her work in the Legislature.
(Mark Fernald, a former state senator and former Democratic gubernatorial candidate, lives in Sharon.)
