So, Maryland has gone and done it. They've gone and mandated that employers with over 10K employees in their state must spend at least 8% of their payrolls on health insurance, or pay the delta between what they spend and that 8% into the state's Medicaid coffers.
It's been called the Wal*Mart bill, because there are only 4 employers who are affected by this bill in Maryland, and the other three disclose their health care spending and come in at over 8%.
Strong feelings on both sides. Of course Wal*Mart is going to challenge the law. Oddly enough they're deciding between the "hey, it's no fair" and the "hey, we already spend that much" argument. Well, which is it?
I'm actually wondering how it is that Wal*Mart has never publicly disclosed their health care spending before? Hard to imagine that a public company gets to avoid breaking that out. I guess it's buried in G&A with other HR costs.
Anyway, since we were talking about this and all, thought it was pertinent.
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