Veto override makes state a national trailblazer

Friday, Jan. 20, 2006

The legislature’s override of Gov. Robert Ehrlich’s veto of the Fair Share Health Care Act, better known as the Wal-Mart bill, made Maryland the first state in the nation to enact law to make large employers pay their fair share of the employee health care tab.

I am proud to be the prime sponsor of this groundbreaking law, which requires large employers, who have more than 10,000 employees to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll for employee health care. The new law specifies that large private employers who spend less than 8 percent of payroll be required to pay the state the difference between what they spend and the 8 percent payroll difference. Payments to the state would become part of a special fund to help expand the number of people eligible for Medicaid.

I am pleased to note that 20 states are considering similar legislation or legislation designed to expose how many Wal-Mart employees receive state-subsidized health care.

The new law sets a standard for large corporations’ responsibility to their employees. It stops Wal-Mart and other large businesses from depending on state-sponsored health programs to care for its workers’ health needs.

It should be noted that although Wal-Mart raked in a $10.5 billion profit last year, fewer than 45 percent of its workers receive company health insurance, compared with 80 percent at rival Costco Wholesale Corp. The figures reveal Wal-Mart’s callous and uncaring treatment of its employees. Approximately 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart’s employees are uninsured or on Medicaid and 36 percent of Wal-Mart workers spent one-sixth of their Wal-Mart income on health care last year.

In Maryland, Wal-Mart employs more than 14,000 people. And it is every one of us, Maryland’s taxpayers, who pick up the slack for Wal-Mart by bearing an annual cost of $500 million a year for Wal-Mart employees on Medicaid.

The new law is appropriately named the Fair Share Health Care Act. By putting this law on the books, Maryland has said loud and clear to giant corporations, you must spend your fair share for employee health care benefits or this state will force you to do what you should have chosen to do. The new law puts an end to big corporations dumping their employee health care responsibilities on the state taxpayers.

Indeed, the legislature has listened to the 80 percent of Marylanders who said they support passage of the Fair Share Health Care Act.

Gloria G. Lawlah, a Democrat from Hillcrest Heights, represents District 26 in the state Senate.