BOSTON — Wal-Mart, the target of bills in 22 states that would force it to spend more on employee health care, plans to expand the availability of its low-cost health plan and allow part-time workers to insure their children.
In a speech to the National Governors’ Association set for Sunday, chief executive officer H. Lee Scott will outline the company’s initiatives and frame the health-care debate as a national crisis, rather than a Wal-Mart problem, according to a partial transcript released by the company on Thursday.
“The soaring cost of health care in America cannot be sustained over the long term by any business that offers health benefits to its employees,” Scott said in the prepared remarks. “And every day that we don’t work together to solve this challenge is a day that our country becomes even less competitive in the global economy.”
Wal-Mart also sees a business opportunity in health care. The retailer will partner with third-party vendors to add drop-in health clinics to select stores nationally that will provide basics such as flu shots. A pilot program in its northwest Arkansas stores has fared well, the company said.
The world’s largest retailer has been criticized by unions and other groups for benefits packages that are unaffordable for many of its rank-and-file employees. A growing number of states, including Massachusetts and Georgia, have listed Wal-Mart employees as top consumers of state-funded medical benefits. Maryland became the first state to require the Bentonville, Ark.-based company to spend more on worker health care or pay the difference into the state Medicaid fund.
Wal-Mart will expand to at least half of its U.S. employess an $11-per-month Value Plan option, a low-cost health care plan it introduced in 2005, and which swaps inexpensive premiums and three free doctors’ visits for higher deductibles. In addition to allowing part-time employees to insure their children, the company will shorten the mandatory waiting period before an employee becomes eligible to join the plan. The current waiting period is six months for full-time employees and two years for part-time workers among Wal-Mart’s 1.6 million global workforce.
The retailer said it has signed up 70,000 new members for health insurance in the most recent enrollment period, 50,000 of whom were previously uninsured.
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“This is just a start,” Scott said, according to the partial transcript. “In the weeks ahead, we’re going to take significant steps to make our health benefits even more affordable and accessible to the working families we employ.”
Wal-Mart Watch, a group that recently disclosed an internal Wal-Mart memo suggesting the company reduce health care costs by discouraging unhealthy workers from applying, questioned Scott’s motives.
His remarks “must be evaluated in the harsh light of the multitude of hidden charges buried in their plans,” said Wal-Mart Watch executive director Andrew Grossman.