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I like Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs
NY TimesAn internal memo sent to Wal-Mart's board of directors proposes numerous ways to hold down spending on health care and other benefits while seeking to minimize damage to the retailer's reputation. Among the recommendations are hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart.
In the memorandum, M. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart's executive vice president for benefits, also recommends reducing 401(k) contributions and wooing younger, and presumably healthier, workers by offering education benefits. The memo voices concern that workers with seven years' seniority earn more than workers with one year's seniority, but are no more productive.
To discourage unhealthy job applicants, Ms. Chambers suggests that Wal-Mart arrange for "all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering)."
The memo acknowledged that Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, had to walk a fine line in restraining benefit costs because critics had attacked it for being stingy on wages and health coverage. Ms. Chambers acknowledged that 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart's 1.33 million United States employees were uninsured or on Medicaid.
If 46% of Wal-Mart employees with families are either uninsured or on Medicaid, if they get hurt or sick, this burden eventually falls on taxpayers like you and I. So in a way you could say that the medicare program which so many Republican confess to detest daily here, is really a corporate-subsidy to rich corporations like Wal-Mart so that they don't have to pay employees a living wage or benefits.
I like Wal-Mart
Perhaps if there weren't so many frivilous medical lawsuits health insurance as it stands wouldn't be as cost-prohibitive, therefore much easier to insure or better insure more of their employees.
The flip side is that a by product of Wal-Mart trying to run such a lean operation is that it helps to keep the cost of living lower for the masses. Worrying solely about job and job benefits is the stuff of unions. We've seen how catering to that mentality has paid off for Detroit.
Yes, continue to blame the employees, but we've all seen how bad corporate decision making at the top by golden parachuters and unrestrained corporate greed, compiled with a complete lack of governmental action will affect employee wages and benefits in Detriot...
LinkIf Delphi Corp. has its way, workers for the nation's largest auto parts supplier would be paid as little as $9 per hour under 65% wage cuts, and be hit with a tenfold increase in health-care costs, no dental and vision care and other sharp reductions in benefits, according to a proposal revealed on the Web site of a UAW local.
The do ent shows for the first time the severity of the cuts the bankrupt company has told the union it needs to survive.
The cuts are even stiffer than the company's final proposal to the union before it filed for Chapter 11 on Oct. 8, further infuriating workers already angered by the threats to their livelihood.
"How in the do they expect anybody to live?" asked Andy Loughran, a 54-year-old Delphi worker from Dayton, Ohio. "You think you're going to get a good quality product at $9 an hour?"
Ha. Exec pay is a drop in the bucket in comparision to those benefits. In addition those union salaries and benefits, in an industry with tremendous compe ion, are what is pushing GM ever closer to the edge. It's hard to compete when your cost structure is significantly greater than that of your compe ors.
Stop wasting this forum's time.
What? How are lawsuits driving up the price of health insurance?Perhaps if there weren't so many frivilous medical lawsuits health insurance as it stands wouldn't be as cost-prohibitive, therefore much easier to insure or better insure more of their employees.
Product liability, malpractice, and intellectual property (prescription patent) lawsuits.
Next question.
Should I laugh with that, or explain how "frivilous" lawsuits cost everyone money?
Should I laugh or should I explain to you how "frivilous" lawsuits are the most overblow problem regarding anytype of health insurance?
You want to look at the reason why health insurance premiums are high and you can point at bad business practices coupled with people's over use of the medical system. You can also throw in the AMA as a reason that medical prices are overinflated.
Yes, it's much more expensive for a successful, forward-looking company like Toyota to build a Tundra in the U.S. than it would be to build it in Japan and ship it over.
Next.
Dan continues to quote a newspaper that has been proven to be wrong in so many stories. Who is now throwing overboard one it's own reporters overboard. And as usual trashes someone who makes money and employs many workers who were taken from the concertratation camps of America.
Yoni, I will go you one better, how bout the damn lawyers that solicit lawsuits that cause drug companies to withdraw drugs which the patients want, that relieve their pain and suffering. But are forced to withdraw because they would bankrupt the company if left on the market.
Yes, it's much more expensive for a successful, forward-looking company like Toyota to build a Tundra in the U.S. than it would be to build it in Japan and ship it over.
Next.
Ha. Any guess as to why Toyota and other auto makers of foreign origin with US operations are able to make it work?
Try again.
How about the drug companies that solicit doctors to prescribe medications the patient doesn't need that brings an added cost to the insurace companies as well as over medicating patients which then lead to lawsuits?
Malpractice insurance is a factor in health care inflation. But the major factor is that the American consumer pays for routine health care services and medications through insurance. If you are getting something worth $100 that you pay $20 for, well, it isn't rocket science as to what the effect on demand is going to be.
Bush's Medicare pharmaceuticals giveaway certainly didn't help things, either.
You know Manny you are an intelligent person, of that I have no doubt, but knowing what someone goes thru with a disese that makes them almost lost to the human race, you have no idea. Drug companies do tell doctors about drugs and show them results of their studies. Drugs companies also take care of patients, which I am sure you have no idea about. You only know what the media tells you. I want you to do me a favor. Look up two things:
the drug tysabri and MS. Also you can look up the the company biogen. And one other thing I will let you talk to someone who has suffered the consequences of lawyers in regards to those things. Like having someone soliciting you to sue a company and then more or less cursing you for not suing because you tell them you want the drug and hope it comes back soon. You make me very angry sometimes, because you have no idea what life is really like.
WE HAVE A WINNER!
Abuse of the system skyrockets when you have insurance policies that promise so much for so little. People go to the doctor for things they could cure over the counter because its cheap. This inturn raises costs, which in turn raises premiums.
Thats a pretty generic run down, but its also fairly accurate as to why you continously see premiums go farther up. You also see a reduction in the quality of service.
I'm sure there are drugs that should be on the market that aren't because of legal complications, but much of that is also due to drugs that make it onto the market and shoudln't be. When you have a drug like Vioxx that never should have been approved and was, it causes lawyers to seek out other drugs they can make money on.
Of that I have no doubts.
However, that is a problem that drug companies share a large responsiblity for. These companies are leading to the overmedication of our country because they remove doctors as an objective party when they put them on their payroll. The doctors agenda's then change from only your health to moving that particular drug as well.
It is a very complicated system but there are far more justified lawsuits than frivilous ones. When you start to limit the effectiveness of lawsuits you put patients in a higher state of danger.
It was semi-tongue-in-cheek, but not entirely.
1. Frivilous malpractice lawsuit filed.
2. Doctor's insurance premiums rise.
3. Doctors have to raise prices to still make a living after said premium increases.
4. Patients are still only paying a $10 - $20 co-pay, so cost to health insurance companies go up.
5. Health insurance companies have to raise their premiums to cover increase benefit submissions from doctors.
6. Rinse, repeat.
Edit: Sorry....I hadn't finished reading the thread. I think all of the hypochondriacs and their piddly little $10 copay's of the world are mostly responsible, FWIW.
Last edited by SpursWoman; 10-26-2005 at 03:31 PM.
Thanks for reminding me, btw ... my mom took that and this attorney is hounding me to get into the class action suit. I forgot all about it.
So your argument is: universal health care would not be a good thing? People should just take care of themselves. Of course this is a NEOCOM argument. I am not in favor of universal health care, I have seen the results of this. But an individual taking health care from a private provider is their decision. I will agree on one thing, doctors and health care providers do inflate their prices (fees) so they can justify raising their fees at a later date. But they don't necessarily get the increase, except when it comes to government. Private insurers will tell them to go suck a lemon. Government causes many increases in many things. The media does the same. How? By simply talking it up so people expect and the companies see a way to increase the price. Happens every day. And then you have futures market, but we will got there at a later time.
We didn't even get into the effects that Medicare and Medicaid have on health care costs -- not just the fraud, abuse, and waste but also the legitimate uses that devalue the costs of medicine at the expense of those who pay out of pocket or who have insurance.
Health care is expensive for a whole bunch of reasons that have little to do with the actual cost of delivering health care.
I have never in my life thought of supporting government provided health care. It is a horrible situation. I would argue it isn't a NeoCon position though. Bush has passed more governemnt healthcare legislation. It is a libertarian position, but more importantly it is MY position.
Just and FYI, the prices you seen on a bill and the price an insurance company pays are 2 different things. If you ever have to pay for medical services, offer immediate payment in exchange for a discount and see where it gets you. You might be pleasntly suprised.
I learned that lesson myself when I was presented with the detailed portion of the bill from the hospital that my insurance didn't cover when my daughter was born. When I had a fit and told them if they thought I was going to pay $12 for a trial sized box of baby wipes they could kiss my ass, we were able to work out a little something better for my portion of the bill.
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