Washblog

STATE REP. STEVE CONWAY
Last updated: February 5th, 2006 06:40 AM (PST)

As a state legislator and a history buff, I have developed great respect - and sympathy - for the lawmakers of generations past who fought so hard to improve all of our lives.
Some of America's most popular government safety nets and standards for working people - from Social Security to the minimum wage, from occupational safety to Medicare - all had one thing in common. They were aggressively opposed by vested interests that unfairly profit from the status quo and were decried as "government mandates" that would do more harm than good.

Some things never change.

Which brings us to Wal-Mart and the Fair Share Health Care bill, House Bill 2517, which I have proudly co-sponsored.

This bill is designed to stop Washington's largest employers - those with more than 5,000 employees - from shifting their employees' health care costs onto taxpayers and other businesses. It would require that they spend at least 9 percent of payroll on employee health care or pay the difference into the state's health care fund.

The Fair Share bill is a concept that fully 83 percent of Washington voters - nearly six out of seven - polled said that they support.

Why? News reports indicate that Wal-Mart, a company that posted a $10 billion profit last year, had 3,100 employees receiving taxpayer-subsidized health care in 2004, costing our state an estimated $9 million. The majority of the Wal-Mart workers receiving this assistance were full-time workers.

You and I and every other employer in the state, including Wal-Mart's competitors, are paying for Wal-Mart employees' benefits. And not just with our taxes. Every person and business owner in Washington who does have health insurance is paying an estimated 27 percent more for it because of uninsured people, most of whom have jobs.

That's why taxpayers, health care advocates, unions and, yes, business owners are so angry.

"It's gotten to the point where good employers feel like chumps for paying for health care for their workers' families, for their competitors' families, for uncompensated care and for the state's caseload," said Craig Cole, CEO of Brown & Cole Stores, a 29-store regional supermarket chain based in Bellingham and founded nearly a century ago.

Cole's company provides 1,500 family-wage jobs in this state and makes payments on health care benefits for 95 percent of them. Although the bill wouldn't apply to a mid-size company like Brown & Cole, it exceeds the Fair Share standard three times over.

Wal-Mart, Cole's direct competitor, insures just 45 percent of its workers - not because the company can't afford it, but because its business model deliberately chooses not to. And why should it when we will?

Wal-Mart has warned that a new health care standard would cost jobs in this state (Viewpoint, 1-29). As evidence, it points to a sky-is-falling study from a think tank called the Employment Policies Institute that is funded by - you guessed it - Wal-Mart and other large retailers.

Doing nothing is already costing us jobs. Good ones, with benefits. Like those at the seven Brown & Cole supermarkets that closed in Washington last year.

It wasn't free-market Darwinism that made those jobs disappear. It was a public policy system that actually encourages huge multinational conglomerates to come here, take the low road and exploit a safety net for people who can't afford to go to the doctor.

There is one point Wal-Mart makes that I agree with: The Fair Share bill will not solve our health care crisis.

The coalition of health care, business, labor, religious and community organizations that support the bill also are pushing measures to help low-income employees of small businesses get health care insurance, to cover more uninsured children and to create more openings in the state's Basic Health Plan. And even all these together will not solve our health care crisis.

They are not intended to. They aim to provide immediate relief to working families that can't afford health care and to taxpayers who are tired of seeing their hard-earned money pad the bottom line of big corporations that are deliberately making the problem worse.

Whatever the ultimate solution, we have a moral responsibility to do what we can do now to alleviate unnecessary suffering, and to make sure that everyone is part of the solution.

State Rep. Steve Conway, D-Tacoma, is chairman of the House Commerce and Labor Committee.

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