Corporations taken to task over health-care coverage

BY KATHERINE GREGG Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE -- Taking their cue from national union leaders, Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty and a like-minded Democratic lawmaker promised yesterday to pursue legislation requiring large employers -- such as Wal-Mart -- to spend more on employee health care or pay a new state tax.

The Rhode Island bill has not yet been drafted or introduced.

But the drive for it, announced yesterday, follows the Jan. 5 announcement by national AFL-CIO president John Sweeney of the start of an organized-labor campaign for similiar legislation in 31 states.

When it is ready, backers here said the bill would require that every employer with 1,000 or more employees pay at least 8 percent of its payroll toward employee health insurance -- or pay the difference into a new state fund.

With no legislation to scrutinize, it's unclear how any money that lands in the proposed "Fair Share Health Care Fund" could be used.

"We are still working with the legislature to define that," said Ann Rhodes, director of the union-affiliated coalition, known as Rhode Island for Health Care, that is leading the drive.

The coalition describes itself as a "project of the Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO."

"'But the idea is that once employers who may not meet the standard are identified and contributing to the Fair Share Health Care Fund, we will use that to either pay for uncompensated care for hospitals, reinsurance for small businesses . . . [or] it could possibly go into the Medicaid program," Rhodes told a State House news conference.

Added Rep. Amy Rice, the Portsmouth Democrat who has pledged to introduce the bill: "We can no longer allow large, profitable corporations to add to the health- care crisis.

"When they don't pay their fair share, their employees have no choice but to go without or apply for public programs in order to receive necessary health coverage for their families," she said in a prepared statement.

"It will help achieve the goal of quality and affordable health care for all Rhode Islanders," said Democrat Fogarty, who is expected to challenge Republican Governor Carcieri's reelection bid.

Rhode Island has 38 companies with 1,000 or more employees, which span the alphabet from ACS Industries to Verizon and include all the big banks and hospitals.

When asked, the backers and drafters of the Fair Share bill said they had no evidence that any one of these employers is paying less than 8 percent of their payrolls for employee health insurance. They said the new employer-reporting requirements of the bill would, for the first time, uncover any that are not.

But George Nee, secretary-treasurer of the state AFL-CIO, left no doubt the legislative drive is aimed at Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer with nine stores and 2,214 employees in Rhode Island.

Said Nee: "In Rhode Island, an overwhelming majority of the large employers still provide health insurance. But it is not fair to those good corporate citizens to allow large corporations in our state to get a free ride. . . . It is corporate welfare. It is creating dysfunction in our health-care system and we cannot allow a climate of rogue employers -- like the Wal-Marts of this world -- to get away with this any longer."

"Everybody should have a right to get health insurance, so they can take care of their families when they are sick," Nee said.

But the picture that Peter M. Derouen, director of legislative affairs for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, painted of Wal-Mart differs starkly from the image Wal-Mart paints of itself, especially here in Rhode Island.

Nationally, Wal-Mart has attracted considerable criticism from Democrats and organized labor because, they say, 600,000 of the company's 1.3 million U.S. employees do not have health insurance through the company -- and are forced to rely on government programs, such as Medicaid -- because their wages are so low, they cannot afford the premiums.

Derouen yesterday produced a UFCW position paper that said employees "must pay $218 per month for family health-care coverage from Wal-Mart," an average worker "would have to pay one-fifth of his paycheck for health-care coverage," and "high premiums and deductibles keep more than half of Wal-Mart workers from participating in the company health plan."

But Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogelman said the company offers a wide-choice of health-care plans to full-time and part-time employees.

In Rhode Island, he said, the lowest-priced plan has a $1,000 deductible, but the cost is a "very affordable" $23 a month for single coverage, $37 a month for an employee and children, and $65 for full-family coverage.

At the other end of the spectrum is what Fogelman described as a "Cadillac plan" that costs upward of $1,000 a month. "We can't make value judgments for people and say the $1,000 plan isn't right for anybody or the $35 plan is right," he said.

"These so-called Fair Share Health Care bills are neither fair, nor 'health-care' bills . . . They are not doing anything to address the number of uninsured. They are not doing anything to control the soaring cost of health care for Americans. We've got 1.3 million folks working for us, right here in the U.S.," he said. "They choose to work at Wal-Mart. Part of the reason is we offer affordable insurance.

"These Washington, D.C. type union leaders should let Americans decide where to shop and where to work. They should focus on solving our nation's health-care challenges, and not be out attacking a company that's providing working families with access to affordable health care."

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