Wal-Mart plans to offer improved health benefits

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Wal-Mart Stores Inc., under attack for its health care coverage for its employees, plans improvements that would include expanding the availability of its lowest cost plan and shortening the waiting periods to enroll part-time workers and their children.

At the same time, Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott said Thursday that employers cannot continue to meet the rising costs of health care and urged a government-business partnership to find an answer.

The announcement marks the second time in six months that the world’s largest retailer has moved to improve health benefits and comes ahead of Scott’s speech Sunday about the issue to the nation’s governors, who are looking for ways to cap rising costs for taxpayer-funded health plans that cover the uninsured. Details of the new health benefit plans are expected to be unveiled in the coming months.

Scott is also expected to renew Wal-Mart’s criticism of bills filed in at least 22 states that would force the retailer to spend more on health care. Maryland has become the first state in the nation to require Wal-Mart to spend more on employee health care or pay the difference into the state’s Medicaid fund. The Retail Industry Leaders Association has challenged the law in court.

“The soaring cost of health care in America cannot be sustained over the long term by any business that offers health benefits to its employees,” Scott said in a statement released ahead of the speech to the National Governors Association.

Wake Up Wal-Mart, one of Wal-Mart’s harshest critics, called the retailer’s attempts to improve its health care plan as “nothing more than a facade.”

“Wal-Mart’s proposed changes are clearly designed to try and salvage a faltering public image, rather than make substantial changes to improve health care benefits for its employees,” said Paul Blank, campaign director for Wake Up Wal-Mart in a statement.

In fact, the labor-backed group released a report Thursday that showed the health care issue at Wal-Mart is getting worse — Wal-Mart failed to provide health coverage to over 57 percent of its employees last year, up from 52 percent the previous year. The group said the report is based on new analysis of Wal-Mart’s reported data of its health care spending.