WalMart and Health Insurance

For those of you who have been following the controversy over WalMart and health care......

For the rest of you. The controversy here is over WalMart and how their workers are receiving health care. Although WalMart does provide health insurance for its workers, critics claim that WalMart makes coverage unaffordable for rank-and-file employees, forcing their folks to rely on publicly-funded plans such as TennCare. There are anecdodal accounts of WalMart management actually coaching employees on how to go about reciving public benefits. The Maryland legislature passed legislation earlier this year to basically force WalMart to provide affordable coverage or contribute to the state's costs (rather than sticking the state and taxpayers with the cost) , but the act was vetoed by the governor.

Md. Passes Rules on Wal-Mart Insurance

Now, it's a question of whether or not the legislature has the votes to override the veto.

Wal-Mart Girds for Battle on Md. Bill

Stay tuned for further developments....

Your thoughts ???????

Grey Market Prescriptions -- A Losing Battle

For the international business folks -- you'll recall this was our #1 example of grey marketing. Also, from a public policy standpoint, does reimporting druigs from Canada really solve anything? In essence, we in the US are unwilling to put pressure on the pharmaceutical companies to lower costs, so we're outsourcing that task to Canada. Basically, it's as though I don't want to yell at a class, so I get someone else to do it for me.

Your thoughts?

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