Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Walmart reliance on Medicaid, the wave of the future?

Companies like Walmart get a lot of flack because they rely on things like Medicaid to provide employee health benefits. If we had single payer healthcare, that would be the norm. The public, rather than private employers, would provide healthcare. It seems like that could be the wave of the future as employer provided healthcare deteriorates and the public sector picks up the tab.

The standard conservative and liberal camps, with their talking points, tend to confuse this issue. Liberals, who usually support single payer, still complain about all the private employers who's workers rely on Medicaid expansion and the Obama Care exchanges instead of employer provided health plans. Well, isn't that what single payer healthcare does?

Conservatives, who rail against government healthcare, don't do very much to provide private health insurance to employees. Companies, all the way from mom and pop businesses to mega wealthy corporations like Walmart, remain scanty on their employee benefits. If companies don't subsidize employee health insurance, government health plans, like the Medicaid expansion, fill the void. Problem is conservatives grumble about government providing healthcare. Remember, many of the more conservative states have refused to implement the Medicaid expansion.

Somebody needs to do it.

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