Walmart and Health Care

Whiny capitalist pig asshole, H. Lee Scott Jr., CEO of Walmart, appeared before the National Governor's Conference this last weekend, and pleaded with the governors present not to pass legislation that would "burden" the piratical retail giant.

Burden the richest retailer in the world? Burden a company that prides itself on keeping wages down in every retail outlet it owns? Burden a company that works day and night to import shoddy goods from China while at the same time actively pursuing a policy of obliterating -- erasing -- the small town American main street?

More than 20 states just in the last year have introduced legislation that takes aim directly at the health care crisis among Walmart employees, even though most of it doesn't specifically name the corporation.

In my own Washington State, fully 20% of Walmart employees are also on the public Basic Health rolls.

Scott's response to this sad statistic? "Have many states made Medicaid programs far more generous in order to cover the kids of working families? Yes, they have," he said, in a pathetic echo of the annoying rhetorical device of Donald "Am-I-an-idiot-yes-I-am" Rumsfeld.

Generous? Covering the basic health needs of a state's citizens is probably seen as "generous" for high-rolling billion-dollar-corporation-running pricks like Scott, but maybe just once he ought to try living down here with the rest of us for a little time. I'd like to see Scott and the other nose-in-the-air head-in-the-clouds stick-up-the-ass corporatists sentenced to live for a year on the $20,000 average salary he pays his employees.

Then we'll see if he's still whining about the "generosity" of states who choose to fill in where he refuses to.