File Under Damning with Faint Praise

Hooray! The largest employer in the world, worth tens of billions of dollars, bragged yesterday in an article in the Wall Street Journal:

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%.

For those keeping track at home, that means 700,000 employees do not have health insurance through Wal-Mart and my bet is that a good percentage of them have no insurance or depend on government Medicaid programs.

Take it away David Nassar of Wal-Mart Watch:

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 . . . . 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.

But thankfully Wal-Mart is planning a study about why more of its worker don't accept their health insurance plan. Phew!

PS