Progress must march on
Maryland lawmakers bucked the will of the state’s Republican governor and the nation’s largest retailer yesterday, voting to become the first state to effectively require that Wal-Mart spend more on employee health care.
In a veto reversal that was closely watched nationally, lawmakers in the Democrat-led General Assembly voted largely along party lines for a measure that legislatures in more than 30 states are considering replicating.
“Maryland is not a shrinking violet — no, far from it,” said Sen. Gloria G. Lawlah (D-Prince George’s), a lead sponsor of the legislation, which drew strong backing from labor unions and health care advocates. “Maryland is a leader. Let us light the torch today. Let us lead.”
Wal-Mart bought Robert Ehrlich, but they didn’t buy Maryland’s soul.
Maryland is a leader. Let us light the torch today. Let us lead.
People actually voted for this woman? Another bad idea.
I still say Wal-Mart should shut down all of their stores in Maryland and flip the bird to those idiots. They’ll see what happens when 17,000 people have no jobs and all the revenues that flow from those stores are cut off.
This is nothing more than the left wing’s first step in mandating companies provide health care for their employees and that is not progress.
I would like to ask Jay C if he/she has ever been without health insurance? Have you ever worked a minimum wage job and have to watch ever single penny that goes through your fingers? Do you have any idea what it is like to live day in and out trying your best and praying that nobody in your family gets sick because you know that it will bankrupt you?
Hey guys, you’ve been in power now for a long long time. The poverty level has gone up and this time it is not people on welfare but the working poor comprising the vast majority of these people. They work 40-60 hour weeks or more to try to live in a home and feed their families while CEO’s of companies that hire them can make 300 times or more what these people make.
Wake up and smell the coffee. That is the real world. I am very proud to live in a state where we take responsibility for helping working people that need a hand to get by.
SaveFarris,
If you follow the link you will see that it is not a single target bill but that the “bill will require private companies with more than 10,000 employees in Maryland to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on employee health benefits or make a contribution to the state’s insurance program for the poor.”
So it applies to all companies. In an admittedly strange analogy, its sort of like calling a bill that prohibits cannabilism, The “Jeffery Dahmler” Bill. An overall behaviour/wrong is being addressed but the arguably worst offender is used to personify the issue, hence the “Walmart” bill.
On the substance of the issue, I would rather Walmart be held to support its employees as opposed to their proven corporate strategy to push their own workers onto medicare/medicade. A suppose, though, that your against the concept of a minimum wage as well.
I thought bills with single targets (i.e. Terry Schaivo) were bad for democracy.
Funny how when the target changes, Libs are all ready to jump on board.
I like how people are saying this bill doesn’t target Wal-Mart because it’s meant for companies with more than 10,000 employees in the state. Considering Wal-Mart is the ONLY company in Maryland that fits that criteria, so what’s disingenous is anybody suggesting this wasn’t an attempt to target Wal-Mart.
We’ve been over this before. Supporters of these types of laws are making the absurd claim that Wal-Mart is somehow a drain on tax revenues in the state because those who work for Wal-Mart have to get government assisted health care because Wal-Mart doesn’t pay for enough. It’s a bogus argument because it’s made under the assumption that if there were no Wal-Mart, the people who work there and have to get state assistance would be better off and less of a drain on taxpayer dollars then they are now. It’s silly.
Besides, this is going to wind up hurting a lot of these 10,000 employees. Let’s say for the sake of argument that Wal-Mart pays an employee $8.00 with no benefits. How does Wal-Mart meet the requirements of this stupid law? Simple, reduce that wage by $0.64 (8%) and put it into feel good health care benefits. The assumption is made that all or most of them need health care coverage. The fact is, many of them are healthy and/or covered by a relatives insurance. So a good number of them are going to have to take an 8% reduction in pay in the name of “progress.”
“medicade”? Doh.
“Excuse me, could I have the grape flavored health care?”
The bill didn’t target Wal-Mart by name. It targeted companies with 10,000 employees.
Now, if you have a problem with mandating that companies provide health care for their employees, I’d like to see your alternative plan for healthcare for those employees. Right now, those employees get Medicaid or use the emergency room (also paid for by the government). Should that continue to be the case? Can I take it that you support a rational government-paid health insurance plan instead, so as to relieve Wal-Mart and other major employers of this onerous financial burden, and to make more efficient the patchwork government health system we have right now? I’m all ears.
Umm, Farris, the Schiavo bill mentioned Schaivo by name; in fact it was called “For the relief of the parents of Theresa Marie Schiavo” and specifically noted it was targeted solely for her and her alone. This bill is called “the Wal-Mart bill” as a nickname, only because Wal-Mart is the only company currently meeting the criteria of the bill: 10,000 or more employees in the state. You may see that as “unfair” to Wal-Mart, but as the bill will affect any other company in the state that grows to 10,000 employees, I’m sure you know you’re being disingenuous, regardless of how anyone agrees/disagrees with the measure. Nice try though.
In your first comment you said it would be great if 17,000 Maryland Wal-Mart employees all lost their jobs.
My suggestion was for them to shut their stores. It’s an extreme suggestion and one that isn’t likely to happen, but if they even suggested it, the same politicians who were so thrilled to “stick it to the man” would be blubbering like 3 year olds who were told “No!”
The realistic approach is just what I said. They’ll in all likelihood, cut pay to help meet the 8% which is going to be a losing situation for most of the employees.
And they’re well within their rights to do so, though in terms of expansion that might be a hinderance for them. Wal-Mart, as Jay ludicrously suggested, can axe half their stores if they want, but that’s just going to reduce their presence in Maryland, especially in high-population areas like Baltimore and Annapolis where CostCo and other rivals will easily pick up the slack. And even for Wal-Mart, not known for spectacular customer service, there’s only so much a superstore can do in terms of reducing staff. Cutting the number of open registers or janitorial staff will make longer lines and dirtier stores (or lead to higher overtime pay for cleaning staff- though Wal-Mart could always illegally try to cover up overtime hours again, I suppose), which will decrease clientele.
Furthermore, a reduction in store numbers reduces base inventory orders- which is what Wal-Mart needs to force suppliers to cut them better prices so they can equally undercut everyone else. The entire structure of Wal-Mart relies on them dominating competition… they won’t be able to do it if they decide to make massive inventory and staff cuts out of, well, spite.
Given the barriers Maryland just erected, I doubt any business is going to voluntarily attempt to break the cap. I see many Maryland companies stalling out in the 9,900 range because the cost of hiring that 10,000th employee will be cost-prohibitive.
In your first comment you said it would be great if 17,000 Maryland Wal-Mart employees all lost their jobs. Now you’re complaining about theoretical cuts to their salary. A bit passive-aggressive, methinks.
This is just freaking brilliant. How long until that number moves from 10,000 to 7500 to 5000 to across the board?
Elrod,
Wal-Mart, though, was the only company that fit the category. Much as if OW said we are going to ban all posters with names starting with ‘el’ and ending with ‘od’.
The alternative plan is for the employees to buy healthcare on the open market – to be responsible for it themselves. The fact that ‘health care’ is arguably a necessity does not mean a free enterprise entity should be required to provide it. Food is a necessity. A car is arguably a necessity for some. Wal-Mart did not force a single one of those employees to work there. Not a one. They could have looked elsewhere. They chose Wal-Mart per the terms and stipulations of Wal-Mart. Its called free enterprise. Sometimes it ain’t pretty but its beats every other alternative.
BTW, Its Maryland’s right to do what they are doing. Its Wal-Mart’s right to shut down the whole operation in the state and take the jobs and pay with it. And if you think Target or Costco will backfill those stores, think again. They have higher overhead and can’t afford to create jobs where Wal-Mart could.
Dugger
And if you ve ever worried about your three-year old running a high fever, you know that going without isn t an appealing choice.
Quaker, perhaps this perfectly encapsulates the difference in political -social philosphies. My solution: I would say that you do not bring a baby into the world if you cannot care for him/her properly and that if you must rely on another individual starting a business, giving you a job, and then providing benefits exactly as you need them, DON”T HAVE THE BABY IN THE FIRST PLACE. Same with gubmint. And I truly fail to understand who exactly will be providing these Wal-Mart employees with health insurance once the left wingers in Md drive the company out of the state? At least Wal_mart provides income and inexpensive fod medicine and clothes to the poor.
Or to put it another way. Rather than criticize Wal-Mart, why not start Quaker-Mart that sells food and medicine cheaply (as Wal-Mart does), provideds hundreds of jobs in thousands of poor areas (as Wal-Mart does) and provides everyones necesities free (as Wal-Mart doesn’t).
Let me know when you work out the details.
Dugger, Let Them Eat Cake!!!
“I see many Maryland companies stalling out in the 9,900 range because the cost of hiring that 10,000th employee will be cost-prohibitive.”
Hammer. Meet nail.
Actually, that’s not an alternative at all.
The employees who can’t afford to buy Wal-Mart’s subsidized health insurance will be even less able to buy insurance independently of the company. (OK, they could buy a stripped-down, catastrophic illness plan, but then they’d have to pay more of their routine healthcare costs out of pocket.)
The real alternatives are: rely on the taxpayer-funded system or go without. And if you’ve ever worried about your three-year old running a high fever, you know that “going without” isn’t an appealing choice.
So we’re down to only one realistic alternative: relying on the taxpayer-funded system.
Opponents of this bill, let’s hear your solutions. What’s your alternative for funding the public health system these working families will have to rely on to care for their children?
Well, that’s just ducky.
By the same sort of thinking, we can do away with prisons, armies, potholes, and every other drain on the treasury. We can take all those tax dollars and buy everyone lemonade and party hats. We’ll all live happily ever after in Duggertopia.
Your solution is no solution at all. Parents without health insurance exist and will continue to exist. Telling the parents of a sick child “You should never have had that baby” doesn’t provide a solution. The parents are still faced with only two choices: public system or go without.
So what’s you real world solution? Fund the system or let ‘em suffer?
[...] t 8% of profits on health care for employees. The political left, as you might expect, is absolutely ecstatic about this, probably because it combines to of their favorite things: [...]
You asked for the real world, yet you’re leaving off the other real-world side of the equation. If parents of 3-yr olds can no longer afford doctor visits, it follows that pediatricians, overloaded on supply, drop their prices to meet the demand of their patients. Ergo, you’ll still be able to treat your child. And now, the government isn’t paying for it. And once those kids are no longer sick, they can get to work on making that lemonade!
“Your solution is no solution at all. Parents without health insurance exist and will continue to exist.”
And so your answer to the irresponsibility (by and large) of one segment of the population is to ultimately take away from the responsible portion of society.
Dugger’s real world solution: leave Wal-Mart alone and let it do what it does best. provide minmal governemnt based health care for the 9essentially) irresponsible in the short term, cut ‘em off in the long term.
Liberals always see something like that as cold and harsh and themselves as compassionate for ‘giving’ to the ‘poor’. Nuts. Its not at all comapssionate to get to the responsible, hard working blue collar Joe and tell him you are taking away more of his scarce resources to fund the SMiths down the street who choose not to work.
And yes, spare the example of the perfectly deserving poor couple. I know they are out there. We just disagree about how many.
Dugger
Good heavens.
“Allright, Mrs. Jones. Your little boy seems to have typhoid, but since you lacked the foresight to get a job that offers healthcare benefits, you’ll just have to take him home now. And by the way, keep him home from school and away from all other humans. Pets too. Keep his windows closed. Typhoid is pretty infectious.”
Dugger, public health isn’t just the sum of the health of individual members. The public, as a whole, is subject to the effects of illness, infectiousness, and epidemics. If you’re willing to “cut ‘em off in the long term,” the ones you cut off aren’t the only ones who will pay the price.
Now who’s obfuscating?
When did we start talking about people “who choose not to work”? When we started out, we were talking about people who work, but whose employers don’t provide affordable healthcare benefits.
At any rate, it seems we have your answer: “cut ‘em off! Let ‘em be sick. That’ll teach the poor not to have so many children.”
There’s nothing more I can add to make your position less convincing.
Wait, I take that back. Maybe I can:
“Well, Susie, it looks like you have polio. Yes, we nearly wiped it out back in the 20th century, but it made a comeback after President Dugger cut off healthcare funding for irresponsible types like you. Sorry, but your mommy works for Wal-Mart, so you just it’s just your lot in life to have polio. Good luck. Stay out of public swimming pools, OK?”
Leave to Dugger to reveal the ugly realities of conservative thinking.
According to Dugger even those who have a job and are working full-time are to be considered irresponsible. Companies, on the other hand, who use government provided health care to boost their profit margins are defenseless victims to be defended and pitied.
Truly astounding.
No.
It instantly added a new stream of revenue to fund the public healthcare system that cares for so many Wal-Mart employees.
Your question also evades my original question. If you oppose a tax on employers, how do you propose to fund the public healthcare system? Or do you propose to eliminate it?
We’d all be better off if we lived in a country in which neither the government nor companies provided health care leaving it entirely up to individuals making minimum wage to fend for themselves. If they can’t afford health insurance, we’ll screw them, the dumbasses. They should have thought of that before they attended that failing public school in the first grade. Instead of pitying these people we should make it easier for companies to fire employees who get sick or are injured on the job. Afterall, there are enough poor people out there for companies like WalMart to burn through. Hire em, pay them minimum wage and when they get sick just can their asses and hire a fresh crop of wage slaves. God Bless Dugger’s New America.
Did passing a tax on Wal*Mart instantly give all those employees health insurance?
That’s right. I tried to ignore the fact that the market for pediatric healthcare, like all economic markets, is infinitely efficient.
If I can’t afford to take my daughter to the doctor and my employer won’t provide health insurance, the free market will instantly provide an affordable alternative that will alleviate my daughter’s illness.
I tried, but you caught me.
“Did passing a tax on Wal*Mart instantly give all those employees health insurance?”
And leave to Farris to follow up with a pure example of true conservative idiocy.
What many leave out is the “Walmart bill” levels the playing field for other Maryland retailers, who are more responsible.
One company, which offers a living wage and benefits, charges $1 for an item, reflecting their costs and a small profit.
Walmart skimps on the benefits, meaning that they can charge 95c for the same item, reflecting their costs and a small profit.
The responsible company goes out of business or cuts benefits. Either way, workers lose health care.
Wow, the conservative ideology rears it’s ugly head.
While I in principle agree that you shouldn’t bring a child in the world that you don’t have money to support, Dugger leaves off a lot of people.
Like a friend of mine, who has a six year old and a job without healthcare. Dugger thinks she shouldn’t have had the kid- which I can understand.
However, six years ago, her husband had a full time job with benefits. Then he died. In Dugger world, she should have forseen that he would have gotten run over in that accident and not procreated with him. Dugger shouldn’t have to pay a nickel for my friend’s reckless decision to have a kid with a man who didn’t cross at the red light.
I think we can do better than that. Every other civilized country does.
If you oppose a tax on employers, how do you propose to fund the public healthcare system? Or do you propose to eliminate it?
This isn’t a tax on employers. This is the government, through fiat forcing one particular kind of company (a large one) to spend money on health care. This has nothing to do with funding the public healthcare system.
Why should Wal-Mart be the only one? Why not force all companies to spend that much on healthcare costs? Why does McDonalds get a pass? Or Blockbuster? Or other major retailers?
What many leave out is the Walmart bill levels the playing field for other Maryland retailers, who are more responsible.
Oh please. I’d like to see these retailers that supposedly offer these wonderful benefits.
Costco for one. Any of the unionized supermarkets as well. Wegman’s market employees last I checked pay $3/check for individual coverage. There are some employers who don’t buy into the Republican “race to the bottom” mentality.
Macy’s even offers a pension along with their other benefits.
Unless, of course, Wal*Mart chooses to lay off 7,001 people. In which case, the public health system remains underfunded to deal with all those newly unemployed.
Only in Quaker’s America…
Feel free to share some more of your speculations, Farris. When we have time, perhaps we can quarrel about their likelihood. Until they actually happen though, they’re “Only in Farris’ Mind.”
In the meantime, shall we return to the question you’re working so hard to avoid?
I’ll save you the trouble of scrolling back up to refresh your memory:
factcheck,
And we can anecdote each other to death and prove nothing. You are making Wal-Mart , at point of a gun, provide (for them) expensive health care for its employees. Why stop at healthcare? Why not a car? A dumptruck load of food each night? Is a vacation a necessity? How about that? At some point there has to be a principle. Does not the minimum wage matter?
Do you know that Target employees don’t make as much as nuclear engineers. Is that injustice? Why not make Target pay each worker $200,000, same as hte nuke-ster. Do you deny the Target workers need that much money? They would be able to send their kids to the same colleges (dare I say, level playing field?) as the nukesters kids. I mean we all love children, right? Surely we don’t want Target kids to left behind nuclear engineer’s kids, right?
Dugger, Ain’t it Funny How Md’s Corrupt Pols singled out Wal-Mart
I think those are all good questions.
As usual, Jay, you’re extrapolating the opponent you’d like to fight from an argument I’m not making. I’m not defending the current bill. I’m asking a question about funding of healthcare as a public policy issue.
(If you want, I can trash the current bill in a number of ways. First on my list would be to agree that it’s narrowly tailored to apply only to Wal-Mart.)
As for your insistance that this isn’t a tax on employer(s), I refer you back to the linked article:
Please don’t tell me you fell for our old liberal trick of calling a tax a “contribution.” I thought you conservatives were too sharp for that.
And you believe that the money will stay earmarked for health care? If you believe that, then you believe all the lottery money collected during the past decade has gone to public schools.
Oh, and my answer to your interminable question is remarkably similar to Dugger’s.
Welcome to the party, nawoods. You’re the latest to barge into the conversation so you can avoid the question!
If there’s no such thing as a tax on employers or corporations, why do they always seem to fight them so vigorously? Whether the tax is passed on or not, it’s assessed on the basis of Wal-Mart’s employment and expenditures, and it is measurable only when it is assessed to the company.
So let’s cut the semantic games and call it the same way the bill does: a tax…(oops! I almost forgot to fool Jay)…a “contribution” to the state health system.
Now, then.
How would you answer the question at hand? Fund the public system? If so, how? Eliminate it?
Or duck the question with more wingnuttery?
QiaB,
this is not a tax on the employer, or a corporation. there is no such thing. all taxes are paid by individuals. this bill will raise wal-mart’s operating costs. they will pass the added costs on to their customers by raising prices, and they will pass the cost on to their employees by lowering wages. like it or not, that’s the way it works. wal-mart exists to make money for their share-holders, not to be a healthcare provider.
Quaker,
You are right about my ‘choose not to work.” Should have said, this example, choose to work at Wal-mart (I was talking ‘liberal’ philosophy in general). Same principle. In general, though, I contend a person is working where he chooses to work – which in macro sense is determined by how well he has planned and conducted his life – studied hard, worked hard etc. Those who have done none of this may well wind up working at Wal-K-Mart, with no or minmum health insurance. My take: at some point the individual has to look out for himself and not expect the other members of society to be made to do it.
And yes it is somewhat harsh. Guess what. Life is somewhat harsh. Also harsh is making hard working Joe Sixpack work more or take home less pay to subsidize Mike Sixpack who didn’t study, did drugs and now works at Wal-mart. How about some economic justice for the workers.
frame,
“Leave to Dugger to reveal the ugly realities of conservative thinking.”
You don’t know the half of it. The cabal’s secret gameplan is to categorize all Wal-mart employees as terrorists and torture each one (by making them watch endless replays of Yentl) until they promise to vote Republican for the rest of their lives.
Your tortured and torturous pal, Dugger (whose Inquistion, nobody expects)
“Ok, so it s a ranson demand.”
And you characterize it this way because you don’t think an employer has any obligation to provide its employees an opportunity to achieve a decent quality of life in exchange for their labor. No for you it’s all about what’s best the company because the employee has already disqualified themselves for basic human decency just in applying for a minimun wage job. You guys deliberately omit the fact that there was a time in this country when there were no such thing as the minimum wage, workplace safety laws, company pensions, company healthcare plans, a 40 hour work week, child labor laws etc., etc. America rejected your arguments over a hundred years ago in favor of all these things. And yet, here you are, back at it again, after the laws and provisions described above carried this country through the Great Depression and two World Wars. But that doesn’t matter to you. Not one bit because WalMart’s CEO needs to make more money. Why if it were up to Dugger WalMart shouldn’t even have to pay minimum wage, afterall, why should it subsidize its workers need to eat? Let the state feed the working poor, WalMart shouldn’t have to. Let ‘em eat cake.
As usual, Jay, you re extrapolating the opponent you d like to fight from an argument I m not making. I m not defending the current bill. I m asking a question about funding of healthcare as a public policy issue.
The subject of Oliver’s entry is about Wal-Mart and this bill. I can only assume at that point, that your question is provided in that context. That’s especially the case when preceed it with, “Opponents of this bill.” If you want to have a discussion about healthcare as a public policy issue then make that more clear.
The bill will require private companies with more than 10,000 employees in Maryland to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on employee health benefits or make a contribution to the state s insurance program for the poor.
Ok, so it’s a ranson demand.
Welcome BACK to Dugger’s America:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution#Social_effects
Farris wrote:
I see.
So we have two votes for “Let the children of the poor spread disease amongst us before they die a hideous, painful death to pay for their crime of choosing the wrong parents.”
Please go with that at election time, willya?
“Do you deny the Target workers need that much money? They would be able to send their kids to the same colleges (dare I say, level playing field?) as the nukesters kids.”
Typical dodge. No one is arguing for equality of pay among all workers. It’s about providing a baseline quality of life for all working Americans to ensure equality of opportunity. Providing a child basic general health care helps to ensure that in the long run they are able to take advantage of other opportunities such as public schooling to get a good education which will help them get a good job. Deny that same child basic general health care when they are young they may not be able to take advantage of later opportunities because of deficiencies in their health and development. It’s plain vicious to suggest that this child doesn’t have a right to a baseline of general healthcare because WalMart needs to make more money.
In Dugger world, he wouldn’t have the government paid health care from the VA. Just thought I would point that out.
No soup for you, Walmart employees! Duggers got his!
Don’t assume.
If you’re going to clip my comments and address a rebuttal to me directly, please be so good as to read and comprehend what I’ve written.
Let’s go back and take a look shall we?
First I asked:
After Dugger proposed that the poor shouldn’t have children, I asked again:
After Dugger suggested cutting off the poor and Farris promised that the “invisible hand” would take care of them all, I asked again:
Farris imagined a scenario in which Wal Mart closes half its stores in Maryland, so I asked again:
Then you came along to address me directly to do what? Argue that this is a crummy bill.
Give me a suggestion here, Jay. How could I make it any clearer that I was asking:
If you didn’t get it the first four times I posted it, why would I think you’d suddenly understand on the fifth?
If you want to make up an imaginary playmate to fight with, please do. But leave me out of it.
Quakers into Freaky Friday. Dugger (thats me!) did not propose:
“After Dugger proposed that the poor shouldn t have children, I asked again:”
Dugger says its irresponsible to have children you can not adequately care for, irresponsible to have children and then expect others to spend their resources to support your bad (or maybe unlucky) life decisions. If you are poor (or rich or in between) and have kids, you look after them – don’t expect Uncle Sugar or Uncle Sam Walton to clean up after your irresponsible mess.
And as polemics go: Let the children of the poor spread disease amongst us before they die a hideous, painful death to pay for their crime of choosing the wrong parents.
This lurid, dime-novel harangue is weak. The problem first and foremost is irresponsible parents who bring children into the world that they cannot care for. Your answer is to make the workers work harder to pay for that irresponsibility, thereby encouraging repetiton of the bad behaviour and further depradation of the workers. Again, how about economic justice for the workers, the producers?
Remember the argument is about forcing Wal-mart to provide health care for its employees. You have transposed that into some sort of 19th century melodrama with children dying excrutiatingly painful deaths – all because of Simon le Wal-Mart.
What about the employers smaller than Wal-Mart that Md. lets skate by Scott (sorry for the implied insult to all my kilt-wearing kinsmen) free. Are their children not out there in the deepest pit of sufferin’ succotash hell like your melodramatic Wal Mart children?
Dugger, First torture them (if not Yentl, then Neil Diamonds greatest hits)and then MAKE them eat cake
Is there a difference between:
and:
If there is, it would appear to be superficial.
And yours is to get government out of the healthcare business. OK, my words with chosen as much for self-amusement as for illumination of my argument. The point is this: public health has a place within the realm of public policy.
We’ve got two discussions going on here: one is about Maryland’s bill that applies to all one of the state’s employers with more than 10,000 employees.
As I have illustriously explained to Jay C. above, I have also introduced a side discussion to this thread: Should we have a publicly-funded healthcare system? If so, who pays? If not, what happens to people who can’t afford to go to the doctor?
Yes, if Maryland follows your proposal to eliminate publicly-funded health care.
Y’all are an entertaining bunch. I’d like to address the general notion that “a person is working where he chooses to work – which in macro sense is determined by how well he has planned and conducted his life – studied hard, worked hard etc. Those who have done none of this may well wind up working at Wal-K-Mart, with no or minmum health insurance.”
It’s just not that level a playing field. I’m a good example. I played and partied and never held a full time job until I was thirty. Finally, I decided to learn to program computers. Within a couple of years I was making good money and had a health plan and a 401K.
Did I study hard? No. I happen to be excellent at math and logic, learning to program took me only a few months of programming for a few hours every night.
Well, did I work hard? Save up to buy a computer, struggle to buy textbooks, etc? Um… no. I have well-to-do parents. They bought most of that stuff for me.
So can I really claim to be more deserving than someone who’s say, just slightly below average intelligence and from a family who really can’t help him out much? Well, I am far more valuable to my employer, so I do deserve more money… but health care? I’m just lucky, I’m not a better person than that guy even if he did make a few bad decisions along the way. The notion that “at some point the individual has to look out for himself and not expect the other members of society to be made to do it” is pretty nauseating when we’re talking about people working full time who can’t obtain health care for themselves or their children. I don’t care how we reach the goal of making healthcare obtainable to them. But requiring large employers to help with the problem doesn’t seem like a bad idea. And if Walmart seems to be singled out, that’s partly because most companies that size do provide health benefits.
“The problem first and foremost is irresponsible parents who bring children into the world that they cannot care for.”
When exactly did this become the problem with regards to employer provided health care? Does not an individual working at WalMart also need hc for themselves?
You accuse Quaker of resorting to cheap 19th century theatrics when you would literally role back the clock to 19th century working conditions.
Is anyone forcing people to work for Wal-Mart? I would think that if a worker really needed the health benefits and couldn’t get them at WM, he or she might look elsewhere for employment. If they had any skills that were in demand, they might even have some luck in their job search.
Since you have determined this new “right” to “expect a decent life,” I’m curious what else we should expect companies to provide to their workers. Surely there’s more to a “decent life” than health insurance?
Because if you’re an unskilled laborer looking for a more decent life you have every right to gain more skills to make yourself more employable.
“If they had any skills that were in demand, they might even have some luck in their job search.”
Because if you are an unskilled laborer whose willing to work you have no right to expect a decent life in America.
“And surely the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness includes the right to a basic standard of living if one is able and willing to work right? If you are an unskilled worker trying to make it in America surely you have a rights to be treated decently and fairly by your employer. Or do you fall into the Dugger camp of Screw the Poor.”
If I thought I was to be treated indecently and unfairly by my potential new employer, I wouldn’t shake hands and accept the job. When I accept the job, I understand that the employer informs me what the initial pay is, what my responsibilities will be and what, if any, benefits are provided. I inform him of the skills I can bring to the table. If he likes what he hears, he offers me the job. If I like what I hear, I accept the job. If I don’t, I walk.
If I’m an unskilled worker trying to make it in America, I surely would make every attempt to increase my skills so I can pursue my right to as much happiness as I’m equipped and ready to work for. I don’t have the “right” to a basic standard of living (whatever that is). I only have a right to pursue it. If I refuse to better equip myself for a better standard of living, I have no right to expect someone else to provide it for me.
No JWG I mean “decent life” in the barest minimum sense: a roof over your head, food, clothes, health. That’s it. According to Dugger and others if you are unskilled and willing to work you still have no right to a basic standard of living in America. Indeed, Dugger proceeds from the understanding that if you are poor it’s your own fault and so you deserve to live in poverty with no right to life liberty or the pursuit of happiness. Poverty is punishment for poor life choices according to Dugger who, in keeping with his stance on torture, domestic spying and other issues, wants to live in a country ruled by a punishing daddy. Dugger ought to get himself a BDSM mistress and let the rest of us live in peace.
“What else we should expect companies to provide to their workers.”
I think it should be pointed out that is exactly the same kind of dodge that Duger employs, “Why if we give them a decent wage and health care where will it stop? Do we have togive everybody Porches too?” That’s a bullshit argument and you know it, or if you don’t you should.
You guys seem to forget that WalMart needs workers as much as workers need WalMart. And yet you would give WalMart all the advantages to drive down wages and benefits in a race to the bottom for unskilled workers.
And surely the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness includes the right to a basic standard of living if one is able and willing to work right? If you are an unskilled worker trying to make it in America surely you have a rights to be treated decently and fairly by your employer. Or do you fall into the Dugger camp of Screw the Poor.
If I m an unskilled worker trying to make it in America, I surely would make every attempt to increase my skills so I can pursue my right to as much happiness as I m equipped and ready to work for.
Yes, if they have a good steady job that pays them well and gives them health insurance, they will have the time and money to take that hvac course at the local cc, then they’ll be able to get a good steady job that pays them well and gives them health insurance.
conservative & reality: a contradiction in terms.
And……. let’s not forget the kids that choose to be born with a chronic illness like cerebral palsey, it’s parents only could afford basic care and now they need an extra 20,000 dollars a year to look after it.
what a fuckin selfish kid. Doesn’t it know that Dugger and his pals were smart enough to not be born sick, or catch something, therefore they deserve to keep their money and let you die, or your parents get broke and miserable?
================== That was sarcasm, next isn’t.
How about Calcutta, or Johanisburg.
Dugger, what happens when a kid is born into a broke family, to an uneducated black man who cannot get a job, lives in a neighborhood full of unemployed people (and don’t say it is their fault, because there are not enough jobs, and there are people who are poor, and there kids get malnourished – learning disabilities and lower IQ result, and they have nothing to look forward to, social dysfunction in family and society).
Sell drugs, prostitute, take drugs to escape reality, get more fucked up, watch Dugger drive his caddy and give them the finger while they starve and get sick and die (1/6 death due to poverty in US).
Angry? What a shock! I know where that fuck Dugger lives, and his neighbors are all rich too!
You get mugged, fucked up, or in any way you and your family a victim of crime, well, that is a pretty stupid decision to make, Dugger et al.
Didn’t make that decision? When you decide to say ‘Fuck them, it is their fault’, guess what, brain scientist?
They will become criminals and asshole because their environment of being broke and hopeless does that, it is a fact. Then, the more of these people, the more likely one of them will hurt/rob/kill/ you or family, or pass HIV or any illness to you.
Pretty fucking stupid way to put yourself in jeopardy. But, you chose it, because the more people that are fucked, and the more selfish opulence and waste and uncaring attitude they encounter for Duggerdudes, they more fucking pissed they get.
Maybe, you won’t get mugged, or ever get stuck somehow in a vulnerable spot and meet up with someone.
But, you might be filling your tank, and the nozzle you are holding was held last by someone with the mutated doomsday pandemic virus that kills 50% of it’s victims.
Hey, did you know that the avg lifespan of USA folk is now dropping? It is the only developed country in the world. Your quality of life, and standard of living is also falling in comparison to countries that provide health care, and money, food, and shelter to people who need it, whether they are at fault, or not.
Not only that, but you can feel like a decent human being, instead of fucking selfish leech that got lucky, and had parents, talent, breaks, opportunity etc., and it all is not your choice, Dugger, you are not the one who chooses whether you will or will not get the breaks and opportunities.
You are not the one who is responsible for the life and people that provide you with opportunities, Dugger, you are part of a society of people that work together to make life better for everyone instead of cutthroat violent chaotic (primitive) surroundings and situation.
But now, you want to suddenly draw a line, and say you made better decisions, and people who are poor made bad ones, but it is just an excuse.
You wouldn’t be alive, Duggerfuck, if people didn’t look after each other and provide support for each other, because those are the qualities that allow our societies and opportunities to exist.
Anyone who thinks they deserve more piece of the pie and others can fuck themselves, you are a monster, and not fit to call yourself a caring human being.
I don’t care if some people take advantage and sponge, look what happens to good people without help who need it, and look what happens in places that don’t offer this kind of mentality in their society. I would like to take you to India, and leave you in the ghetto.
I’m not trying to be too argumentitive here, because this is an issue I am split on. On the one hand, if a large company doesn’t supply insurance, those workers WILL end up in an ER at a county hospital, and the taxpayers pay for it….I don’t like that. On the other hand, I am NOT interested in telling a business how to run the details of its day to day workings.
Here is my problem though. I see people who are unisured or insured by a state system everyday. Almost every single one of them is carrying a cell phone around. I would venture to say they all have color tvs in their house. They often wear designer label clothes
My point is, as a society we have given poor people the out of free medical care. So they choose to spend the little bit of disposable income they have on “luxuries” rather than insuring their families.
I just don’t know how to “incentivize” people to do the right thing, and I am not comfortable with the “State” demanding that the businesses do it for them….
It’s a conundrum…..
“If I thought I was to be treated indecently and unfairly by my potential new employer, I wouldn t shake hands and accept the job.”
You guys act as if everyone out there has the luxury to just turn down jobs until the perfect one comes along. Evidence of just how elitist and out of touch conservative thinking is with real people and real life.
To the people asking why Walmart employees don’t all get better jobs, I have some rhetorical questions.
1)Do you want shops to exist?
2)Do you accept that for them to exist, someone will have to work there?
3)Do you want the government to provide their healthcare?
If your answer to the last question is no, then you need them to earn enough to pay for it themselves. Unless shops choose to pay that amount (and there’s not much incentive: their potential employees don’t have the power to pick and choose at will), you’d have to be in favour of a sufficient minimum wage, or employer-provided insurance. The only other alternative is wanting there to be an underclass of people who cannot afford healthcare.
If your answer to either of the first two questions is no, then frankly, I’m puzzled.
When lobbyists are successful they often achieve the opposite — legislation in favor of one corporation or a very select few. Of course that’s just business as usual and nothing to see here, folks.