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Wal-Mart expands employee health coverage

The giant retailer also plans to lease space in 50 stores to companies operating in-store medical clinics.

By Tyler Chin, amednews staff. March 20, 2006.

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Under fire from labor unions and state legislatures for what they say are the company's stingy health benefits, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced on Feb. 26 that it will make health care coverage more accessible and affordable to its employees, including opening 50 low-cost health clinics at its stores nationwide.

In a speech delivered at the National Governors Assn.'s winter meeting in Washington, D.C., Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott outlined a series of steps the company is undertaking to improve employee health benefits, including:

• Expanding availability of a low-cost, high-deductible health plan to half of its 1.3 million employees by Jan. 1, 2007. The plan was rolled out in 2005 and is currently available only in a handful of markets for $11 per month plus 30 cents more per day for children. It provides three doctor visits and three prescriptions per year per covered member before the deductible kicks in. There is an employee co-pay for those visits and prescriptions.
• Sharply reducing the waiting period, currently two years, for part-time employees to become eligible for health coverage. The company did not say what the new time frame will be.
• Allowing part-time employees to enroll their children in a company-sponsored health plan, a benefit previously available only to full-time employees.

Scott also said Wal-Mart will lease space at 50 stores to companies that operate in-store medical clinics, making low-cost health care more widely available to customers as well as employees.