Wal-Mart offers cheap generic prescriptions to everyone, but inadequate health insurance to its workers. Where’s the benefit?
If you, like me, live in a small town with few retail options, Wal-Mart offers goods, and prices, we can’t get without driving more than 40 miles out of town. But that doesn’t mean I have to buy everything my family needs there. We have a number of good pharmacies in my town, many of whom offer delivery service. Generic prescription drugs run $7 with my health insurance plan. Although that’s nearly double the Wal-Mart’s new price, I don’t plan on transferring my family’s prescription to the retail giant’s pharmacy. And I have my reasons.
First, Wal-Mart has a tradition of hiring a huge number of part-time workers with no benefits. According to information from Wal-MartWatch, a full-time employee must wait six months before benefits kick in, and then pay a deductible or $1,000 for individual and $3,000 for families. When many states claim Wal-Mart as their biggest employer, that’s a huge number of U.S. workers with inadequate insurance.
Second, Wal-Mart’s reliance on cheap overseas production has also helped erode this country’s manufacturing base, resulting in fewer good jobs with health insurance benefits. Offering cheap generic prescriptions doesn’t come close to making up for the jobs lost to the mega-company’s thirst for cheap labor.
I am all for saving money, especially when it comes to something as important as my family’s health. But Wal-Mart’s latest cost-cutting promotion is a hard pill to swallow.
tags: Wal-Mart, Walmart, Wal-Mart prescriptions, $4 generic prescriptions
