The Wall Street Journal-20080123-Wal-Mart Insured Ranks Rise- Half of Employees Take Retailer Plans- Critics Unimpressed
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Wal-Mart Insured Ranks Rise; Half of Employees Take Retailer Plans; Critics Unimpressed
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said the percentage of its work force enrolled in its health plans has increased significantly from a year ago after it expanded choices, including lower-cost options.
The Bentonville, Ark., retailer has been criticized by union-backed groups and others for offering employees skimpy benefits in an effort to contain costs. Wal-Mart also has come under fire for considering a proposal to keep a lid on spiraling health costs by discouraging older and unhealthy workers from its employee ranks.
The world's biggest retailer by sales said 690,970 employees, or 50% of its almost 1.4 million staff, signed up for company-furnished health insurance during its open-enrollment period late last year, up from 47% a year earlier.
The remaining employees are covered by either family members' plans or government-provided health care or forgo insurance altogether. During the past year, the percentage of Wal-Mart employees reporting that they had no coverage from any source fell to 7.3% from 9.6%.
Nationwide, 15% of all full-time workers have no health insurance, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Wal-Mart critics were unimpressed. "We are surprised that Wal-Mart is proud to report that half its employees choose not to take Wal- Mart's health-care plan, including 7.3% who think Wal-Mart's plan is worse than nothing at all," David Nassar, executive director of Wal- Mart Watch, a watchdog group sponsored by unions and other Wal-Mart critics, said in a statement.
"Since Wal-Mart neglects to release the enrollment numbers for specific plans, it is impossible to determine if enrolled employees signed up for the cheap plans, which offer little coverage and high deductibles, or whether employees signed up for the expensive plans with better coverage," he continued.
Wal-Mart said it will commission a study to better learn why some employees choose to go without health coverage and what might be done to encourage them to accept it.
Wal-Mart wouldn't say how much it spends per employee on health care. But it said it expects its health-care costs to increase less than 10%, according to Linda Dillman, the company's executive vice president of benefits and risk management.
Ms. Dillman said that adding more choices, including lower deductibles, predeductible health-care credits and a $4 copay for more than 2,000 generic prescriptions, were the main reasons for the increase in health-benefits enrollment.
