I doubt Wal-Mart notices, but I’m boycotting Wal-Mart because Wal-Mart endorses political control of health care. Forcing people to buy politically-controlled products against their will is a basic violation of individual rights. So long as Wal-Mart endorses this gross violation of rights, I’m certainly not going to contribute any money to the chain to help them do it. I complained to Wal-Mart, and the reply I got back from the store only turned my irritation to outrage. Here is the reply:
Dear Ari,
My name is Ruel. I am with the Walmart.com Customer Service Team. Thank you for allowing me to assist you today.
We appreciate your interest in Wal-Mart’s views on the efforts in Congress to craft and pass legislation for Healthcare Reform. At Wal-Mart, we believe in a shared responsibility and support an employer mandate that is broad and fair for all parties involved. We believe this mandate should cover as many businesses as possible, part-time as well as full time employees.
We believe that a mandate must also be accompanied by strong provisions that will reduce health cost and improve the value we get for our health care dollar. Any mandate should guarantee savings for the federal government and for employers who provide health insurance.
Wal-Mart is committed to helping people save money so they can live better and will offer our support to any initiative that will improve the quality of life for our employees and patrons. Wal-Mart will remain consistent by continuing to implement our core beliefs; respect for the individual, service to our customers and striving for excellence.
We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced.
Thank you for visiting Walmart.com. We appreciate the opportunity to serve you and look forward to your next visit.
Sincerely,
Ruel
Customer Service at Walmart.com
For a more honest evaluation of Wal-Mart’s motives, see the critique at FIRM.
May Wal-Mart be damned for selling out American rights and values.
Add this to the list of reasons why I generally avoid shopping at Wal-Mart. Pretty much the only thing I ever buy from them is music, because of their policy of selling only the sanitized versions.
Actually, I think Wal-Mart is taking a purely capitalist approach by looking out for their bottom line. They probably see that private insurance companies will never be able to compete with government sponsored health care and everyone will be forced into the Obama option. Therefore they won’t need to provide that employee benefit once we have fully socialized medicine. The future is not looking too rosy at this point.
A “capitalist approach” cannot entail the implementation or endorsement of socialism.
It’s also true that the current way that most people get health care insurance is not ideal. I think Lin Zinser and Paul Hsieh got it exactly correct here: “The current system of employer-sponsored health insurance is a catastrophe, and it is a result of government intervention in the free market.”
Everyone would be better off with a free market approach to health care.
FIRM’s take is spot on. Wal-Mart is simply crowding out competition by government policy. What’s the definition of fascism again? Oh yes, according to the economic library of liberty, it’s “socialism with a capitalist veneer” and oh how thin the veneer is these days.