Subsidized Corporate Healthcare Targeted

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are taking aim at one form of corporate welfare: taxpayer-subsidized healthcare. The number one target: Wal-Mart.

With 41 percent to 46 percent of its 1.6 million U.S. workforce insured under the company plan, Wal-Mart has become notorious for passing its healthcare costs to taxpayers.

To get a handle on the corporate cost shifting, tax-conscientious lawmakers have introduced the Healthcare Accountability Act. The measure would require states to report data on Medicaid beneficiaries who either are employed by companies with 50 or more employees or are the spouses and children of people who work for such companies.

The measure, introduced by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), dovetails with similar initiatives in state legislatures.

Lawmakers in almost a dozen states, including Connecticut, Maryland and New Hampshire, considered proposals this year to address the corporate drain on public health programs.

Maryland’s measure, considered a model bill by many observers, was vetoed by the governor. That measure would have created a state-controlled fund financed by surcharges on large employers that do not spend 8 percent of their total payroll on health insurance.

As New Orleans was busy pumping toxic floodwater from its streets, the ink was dry on President Bush’s proclamation suspending the federal prevailing wage law for Hurricane Katrina relief workers.

The law, the Davis-Bacon Act, requires government contractors to pay prevailing wages on federally funded or assisted construction projects. In the hurricane-ravaged region, prevailing wages are $8 an hour to $14 an hour.

Prior to lifting the wage standard, the Bush administration also awarded no-bid contracts to well-connected corporations like Vice President Dick Cheney’s former employer Halliburton. The White House spun the move as a way to expedite reconstruction. But that argument is hollow. The Pentagon, for example, was rebuilt after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with Davis-Bacon in place. That project came in ahead of schedule—and under budget.

Other policies the White House and its congressional allies want to impose under the guise of disaster relief would lift environmental regulations in the region, limit victims’ rights to sue and institute a $500 million private school voucher plan.

AFT leaders have met with members of Congress to voice their outrage over the exploitation of the tragedy to advance an ideological agenda.