Let Wal-Mart fix US health care

By Jim Jubak

Can't have people messing up the profit margin after all.

The bottom line is everything.
:eyes:

This has to be one of the absolute worst ideas I have ever read.

as a metaphor for universal single-payer healthcare (without the profit motive) though, it makes a few good points.

All of the "plans" that involve using the status quo with a few tweaks to get more people covered by insurance are basically bullshit.

Healthcare provision should not be a for-profit business. That is it in a nutshell. The providers themselves should be compensated, and the highly-skilled and hard-working should be rewarded. I have no problem with the individuals doing the work making money, but they should be working for a not-for-profit. Having capital markets involved, with people investing in corporations that run hospitals, provide insurance, etc. and expecting a big ROI is obscene. Paying tens of millions to CEOs of such corporations is obscene. Making decisions about people's healthcare based on the quarterly earnings statement is obscene.

But if that not-for-profit used the bargaining and supply-chain expertise that Wal-Mart has developed, well, I'm, all for that.

All the examples he gives of Wal-mart's "success" in the health industry are just nibbling around the margins, which is what Wal-mart does best. They take straightforward, uncomplicated transactions -- like buying a jar of pickles -- and make inroads either by offering their own versions at low prices, or pressuring their suppliers to lower their prices if they want their products on Wal-mart shelves.

But putting pressure on a brain surgeon or a hospital to lower prices is not like putting pressure on a picklemaker. You know what you're getting when you buy a jar of pickles, for instance. If the supplier cuts corners, you know it. There are less pickles in the jar. But if you don't get the right tests or the right treatments because someone thought they could pawn off a cheaper alternative (or nothing at all), you will likely have no idea until it's too late. If even then.

Most of what Jubak's article here celebrates is the power of being able to negotiate prices lower by representing large numbers of people. Isn't that what universal health care is all about? That he doesn't get this seems amazing. It's a good example of the cultish double-standard we see so often from those on the right that anything done by big business is fantastic, while the same things done by the government are terrible.

For instance, Wal-mart sees a product that is they think is being sold at too high a profit margin, so they take it off their shelves and contract to produce a store-brand version at a lower cost. If Wal-mart does it, it's competition in action, and will get ceaseless praise in articles just like this. But when government does it? It's eeeeeeeevil socialism! The government, actually competing against private industry for the benefit of the public? The horror!

If our government used the same kinds of cost-cutting measures and pressures as Wal-mart does, I can guarantee you that this guy would be one of the first people on the complain train.

Frankly, my biggest gripe about Wal-mart's low, low prices is that Wal-mart is a mess. Whenever I've been there, I'm always astounded by how cramped and crowded everything is, with random pallets of crap shoved in the middle of their main aisles, making it impossible to get around. There are always too few checkers at the registers, which means I have to wait and wait. And the customer service? Ye gads. No one knows anything about anything. Getting someone to answer a simple question is like pulling teeth.

This is what Mr. Jubak wants to be the health care experience of the future? God help us all.

bankruptcy

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3046wal-mart_pricing.html

and then there was Levis an "American Tradition"

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0926-03.htm

wonder how they would out-source our health care?

We are so unwilling to embrace true Universal Health Care, yet we would trust the job to one of the most sued companies in the world regarding human rights.:banghead:
It took a few seconds to find these links- it would take you years to read all the lawsuits filed against them
http://laplaza.org/~totem/humanrights.html
http://www.progressiveu.org/182354-wal-mart-a-violator-of-human-rights
http://media.www.bsudailynews.com/media/storage/paper849/news/2003/10/02/Opinion/Outside.The.Box.WalMart.Guilty.Of.Human.Rights.Violations-1302183.shtml

and your biggest complaint is?:

"Frankly, my biggest gripe about Wal-mart's low, low prices is that Wal-mart is a mess. Whenever I've been there, I'm always astounded by how cramped and crowded everything is, with random pallets of crap shoved in the middle of their main aisles, making it impossible to get around. There are always too few checkers at the registers, which means I have to wait and wait. And the customer service? Ye gads. No one knows anything about anything. Getting someone to answer a simple question is like pulling teeth."
:banghead:

I can't help you understand if you buy into it the lie no mater what the cost.
The 4-5 dollar generic drug price has been around for a long time RiteAid, Vons and many others were offering it long before Walmart made it a commercial to boost sales. I will not entrust my health care or anyone else I care for to a company who has so little regard for human rights. The bottom line is Walmart will make a profit and they will do it in their usual fashion on the backs of the poorest amongst us. Those with little or no voice.

This is how they treat their workers at their clinics someone who is part of the "walmart family" I wonder how they would treat a stranger like you and me.
http://blog.wakeupwalmart.com/ufcw/2006/03/former_walmart.html

If you think they are any different than what Kaiser was in the beginning you are either naive or could care less about your fellow man. I'm going for naive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QkgUkM0o6Q

Pssst... really do something other than push the Wal-mart corporate lie.

of Walmart going after our health care dollars. They are just starting to expand in this direction so the horror stories are yet to come, and come they will. There are too many people who don't see that Walmart cares only about their bottom line. They will sacrifice the health of the sickest and poorest in the same way they have sent suppliers (Vlasic) into bankruptcy or forced American Companies (Levis) overseas in order to put all of the profits in their own coffers. . What needs to be understood is they are using Kaiser's early model of HMO's with little or no regulations. When they have control of the market much the same as they have done with their stores in rural communities, then they will dictate who gets care and who does not (much like they dictate which third world country will have the privilege of being enslaved by them}.


Glad to hear you don't support it........Psst! do something,

Inform others the true cost of doing business with Walmart
http://www.walmartmovie.com/

support true Universal Health Care
http://www.hr676.org/



"If not us, who? If not now, when?"

:thumbsup:

If you take a look at how Wal-Mart (and most other large companies), I'll bet you will find that Wal-Mart is self-insured for its employees.

Corporations self-insure for one reason -- it's CHEAPER.

THIS IS THE ARGUMENT FOR SINGLE-PAYER!!! Everyone needs to start using this argument in single-payer discussions.

Why do corporations self-insure? Because IT'S CHEAPER.

We should self-insure as a country (no insurance company underwriting).

<edit to add> That's not what the author meant, I realize. But we can use the argument of "Looking to Wal-Mart" (or any large corporation) for the answer.

Large corporations self-insure because it's cheaper.

to charge you pennies but send you to China to see a doctor. And it wouldn't work.

40% of Wal-Mart's workforce (not the suits, of course) lives below the poverty line. Yeeeah...that's the ethics I want in my health-care system.

:crazy:

"The goal, everyone agrees, is to maximize coverage, heighten competition and cut costs."
Um. No. I, for one, couldn't disagree more. Only lobbyists for the Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industries would espouse such cynical and half-assed "goals". The only way to fix our health-care mess is to remove the profit motive using a universal/taxpayer-funded single-payer system. You know - something along the lines of what they have in every other civilized country. Would you want your police and fire protection to be privatized and profit-driven? Of course not. So why do you tolerate it when it comes to your family's health? And all those arguments opposing universal coverage are, for the most part, bullshit propaganda circulated by those same mega-corporations. We DO have the money to cover everyone. You would have MORE choice under a single-payer system.(Choose any doctor/any hospital.) The government would NOT dictate what is covered (as the Insurance Companies do now.) You and your doctor would determine your course of treatment - as it should be. We'll be seeing lots of "news" articles like this one in the months to come - brought to you by those lying, money-worshiping bastards who rely on the public's gullibility to fund their 8-figure salaries.

Some good stuff here:

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/88744/?ses=e985439ec0d630bd232dba7837c4a577

And I believe the author of the piece should be the first to sign up for the test program. If this is such a good idea, I am sure they would have no problem in doing so.