Wal-Mart made “many CEOs choke on their coffee this morning,” said Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans in Slate’s The Big Money. Once “the poster child for corporate villainy,” Wal-Mart is now backing President Obama’s proposal to force employers to provide health insurance for their workers. That’s a big assist to Obama, coming from America’s “largest private employer.”
“The idea of the notoriously cheap chain favoring liberal reforms might seem like a shock,” said Peter Suderman in Reason, but Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott backed universal health care two years ago. There are also at least two good reasons for Wal-Mart to back an employer mandate: “good PR,” and good business. Wal-Mart can afford it; “smaller competitors” can’t.
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