Wal-Mart Takes the Starch Out of Unions---Now Insuring 93 Percent of Associates

Remember a couple of years ago when the unions put Wal-Mart directly in their cross-hairs as the poster child for what is wrong with our health care. They went state-by-state attempting to pass legislation directly targeting Wal-Mart with new costs.  The allegations that Wal-Mart, long hated by the unions because they could never organize their workers, was "the corporate bad guy" because it was skirting covering its workers with health insurance. 

Wal-Mart steadily has taken the starch out of the unions over the last couple of years.  More evidence came to light earlier this year according to Neil Trautwein, health care expert at the National Retail Federation (NRF). He reports Wal-Mart made a concerted effort to cover more of its associates with health insurance and saw a 20 percent jump in coverage this year.

Trautwein says:  "Wal-Mart Stores never get as much credit as they actually deserve on the health care front.  This year's open enrollment data shows that 92.7 percent of their associates have health cover.  Slightly more than half get it through the Wal-Mart plan." 

"I recently saw a demo of their on-line enrollment platform that allows their 1.4 million employees to customize their health benefits in 77 different ways -- by answering 4 very simple questions. It was a truly impressive...and private employers could learn much from Wal-Mart and the retail industry generally," Trautwein reports.

Linda Dillman, executive vice president of benefits and risk management for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., said: “Just as in the last few years, we are pleased to see an increase in enrollment numbers. With 690,970 associates – and more than 1.1 million associates and dependants in total – now covered by Wal-Mart’s plans, we can see that the improvements we’ve made are being embraced by our associates and their families.”

According to data collected in a survey during the fall 2007 open enrollment period, more than 30,000 associates who chose Wal-Mart’s coverage for the first time reported being previously uninsured. During the past year, the percentage of Wal-Mart associates who reported having no coverage declined from 9.6 percent to 7.3 percent – a figure significantly lower than the 17.7 percent uninsured rate nationwide for U.S. employed workers that was recently reported by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Dillman pointed to the recent changes in Wal-Mart’s benefit plans as being a key factor in increasing enrollment rates. The company added more personalized choices, lower deductibles, pre-deductible health care credits and a $4 co-pay for more than 2,000 covered generic prescriptions, among other changes. As in previous years, children of every associate – both full-time and part time – qualify for health insurance when the parent qualifies.

Wal-Mart also took extra steps to get associates health coverage and enrollment information, including an “Enrollment Made Easy” DVD mailed to every associate’s home. Associates could also go online to access materials and enrollment forms, and use a specially designed web-based tool that helped them evaluate the coverage that best meets their needs.

Don C. Brunell, AWB President