Walmart to the Rescue

Walmart's response to the recent spate of health care laws targeted at them is to say that it's time for government to do something about health care costs and coverage.

I say it's time to welcome Walmart about the progressive bandwagon on this issue.

When national health care policy finally arrives, it'll do so riding on the backs of the capitalist owner class. The choice for them is simple. Unable to provide health care coverage themselves, they either roll on to the back of their workers or we have a collective approach which removes it as an employment issue.

It comes about as much due to the changing nature of the workplace as anything else. When we all worked thirty years for the same company, the health care provider could count on years of youth and relative health to pay for age and ill health. That's not the case today. People rip through job after job with less worry. Heck, when I lived in the Bay Area the standard boss's plea was, "Can you stay for at least two years?"

Cradle to grave health insurance can only work through the only agency which follows us from cradle to grave, the government. So we need to give 'em the job, already.

In that, we liberal types need to stop pounding on Walmart and welcome them aboard. They've got the corporate cachet and, best of all, the money, to make this happen.

If nothing else, it'll make 'em a lot cheerier to work for. It's just hard to listen to employees being dressed down over the loudspeaker. At least let them know they've got coverage to deal with the headaches which come with the job.