The bottom line

Wal-Mart has just offered it's employees a new low-cost health insurance package. It's being lauded as a step in the right direction...and I am immediately suspicious.

It probably seems like a more than generous offer to the "humanitarian" millionaires who own Wal-Mart, but cheap is all a matter of perspective. Sure the monthly premiums are low, but if you read the whole article you see that the plan has high patient contributions toward prescription costs, high emergency room co-pays, and higher deductibles. If you're at all familiar with insurance plans then you know that patient co-payments including those for prescriptions, office visits, and emergency room visits do not count toward your annual deductible. Still cheap? Consider also that most Wal-Mart employees make under $19K per year.

Wal-Mart has always done everything in it's power to thwart efforts at unionization and this seems to be a conciliatory attempt on the company's behalf; one that wasn't designed with the employee's quality of life in mind.

I really want to believe that I am just being cynical; perhaps Wal-Mart is truly taking a step in the right direction. However, in light of the article this week in the times regarding yet another infamous Wal-Mart memo, I am led to believe that Wal-Mart's motives are not altruistic.

The bottom line is that Wal-Mart is only concerned with their bottom line.