Sell your WalMart shares. My initial response to this is that I don't agree.
Maryland law now requires Wal-Mart Stores to provide health insurance benefits to all of its employees.
The law-which was approved after the governor's veto was overridden-could have wide ramifications, as 30 states are mulling similar legislation, according to The Washington Post.
I'm sure plenty of analysis will be done on this over the coming weeks. I'll make up my mind once I read it. But in general, I think decisions about health care offerings should be left up to the company, not the government. If a company doesn't want to offer it at all, I don't see what is wrong with that.
Tyler Cowen has written some interesting stuff on why the healthcare market doesn't work so well, and also whether or not we can really take care of everyone.
I wrote up a sarcastic response to all of this Wal-Mart stuff here:
U.N. Passes “U.S. Outsourcing Health Bill”
Errr, sorry about the crap CSS layout. I’m still working on it.
The government will end up dragging down Walmart just like it did Microsoft.
Great article to read, go here:
http://www.smartmoney.com/aheadofthecurve/index.cfm?story=20060113