Health-care dumping bill readied
Posted on Tuesday, January 24, 2006
A Wisconsin bill requiring big companies to spend more on worker’s health insurance that failed to get out of committee last week could come back next year.
Similar bills are pending in 12 states, and Bentonville-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has vowed to fight them.
But Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle is planning to introduce his own bill within the next few weeks. The bill would put a law on the books making it illegal for companies to push workers into a state-supported health insurance program, called BadgerCare, for low-wage earners.
“The fine against companies is $ 250, 000 per incident,” Doyle spokesman Melanie Fonder said by phone from Wisconsin. “The definition of dumping will be decided by state agencies including the departments of Health and Family Services, Commerce and Agriculture. His bill does not require companies to provide health insurance. But they can’t dump.” Doyle, a Democrat, discussed Wisconsin’s BadgerCare’s crisis in his State of the State speech last week, and mentioned Wal-Mart.
“I want to make this very clear to Wal-Mart and any other company that might be thinking of shifting its healthcare responsibility to taxpayers : BadgerCare is intended to help working families, not multibillion-dollar corporations,” Doyle said.
Earlier this month, Wisconsin legislators held hearings on a health-care bill that required companies with more than 10, 000 workers to spend at least 10 percent of their payroll on workers’ health insurance. The bill, proposed by Democratic Rep. Therese Berceau, is modeled on a Fair Share health-care bill passed by Maryland legislators this month. The Wisconsin Fair Share bill did not make it out of committee for a vote.
“That this bill failed even to make it out of committee in the Wisconsin Assembly is a big setback for the Washington, D. C., union leaders driving these state-by-state attacks against large employers,” Wal-Mart spokesman Nate Hurst said.
But a victory is still hard to call, according to the Republican legislator who chairs the Wisconsin Assembly Labor Committee.
“Representative [Steve ] Nass feels the bill could be redraftea to fit Wisconsin statutes and programs and resubmitted in January 2007,” said Nass spokesman Mike Mikalson by phone from Wisconsin on Monday. “There is a huge problem here with employers, not just Wal-Mart, dumping workers onto a state-supported program providing health insurance for low-income Wisconsin workers. Everyone, Republicans and Democrats, agrees we need legislation to stop this dumping.”
Mikalson said Nass and his Republican colleagues felt the bill might drive big employers away from Wisconsin. And “too much of the rhetoric was just Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart ; they’ve got to drop that. There is anecdotal evidence that Wal-Mart dumps, but it is certainly not the only company and may not even do it the most often.”
He and the Wisconsin bill’s Democrat sponsor agree Wisconsin’s $ 191 million BadgerCare health insurance program for low-income families is in crisis. The fund was named after the state’s official animal.
BadgerCare is partly funded by Medicaid and has enrolled 62, 558 parents and 29, 942 children.
Low-income families who are not eligible for Medicaid because they own a car or house can enroll in BadgerCare.
Berceau said Wisconsin taxpayers spend $ 4. 75 million annually for the 3, 128 Wal-Mart workers on BadgerCare and Medicaid. She said she doubts Mikalson’s sincerity.
“If Mr. Nass and his colleagues are saying the bill has merits now, it’s because there’s an election this fall and Wisconsin voters are upset about this issue of big companies dumping workers onto public assistance,” she said. “They were completely negative during the hearing. You know, it was actually a moderate Republican, [former ] Gov. Tommy Thompson, who supported BadgerCare because he recognized the health insurance crisis.”
Berceau said she will modify the bill to make it more palatable to all Wisconsin legislators, then resubmit it in 2007.
Berceau said the new bill will contain a measure protecting financially faltering companies that can’t afford that 10 percent.
Tom Powell, Berceau’s research assistant, said he asked Wal-Mart repeatedly how much of its payroll it spent on health insurance. He said Wal-Mart would not reveal the figure. He said another company, Aurora Health Care, had around 10, 000 workers in Wisconsin.
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