Pig farms and Wally World

[msgadget]

Makes ya wonder who really benefits from HSAs...

Pig Farms and Wal-Mart

What do pig farms and Wal-Mart have in common? The answer I’m looking for has nothing to do with pork. A hint? Think avian flu and health savings accounts (HSAs). The answer is that both pig farms and Wal-Mart are mixing vessels and accelerators of change. The pig farms are widely recognized as ideal containers for large numbers of colonies of bird-derived influenza viruses. Within the pigs, the viruses grow, thrive, bump into each other, and accelerate mutations and genetic exchanges that make the arrival of a version of H5N1 that could spread easily from human to human and ignite a pandemic.

As for Wal-Mart, the giant retailer of anything and everything, it too is a vessel and accelerator. Together in one site, we are beginning to see health, technology, and financial products bump into each other in search of the real mutation that would allow the infectious spread of a new insurance product, the HSA.

Last week, federal regulators completed their first public hearings on Wal-Mart’s request to launch its own bank. An initial effort in 2003 was met with sharp resistance from the financial sector, and side-stepping by Wal-Mart, as they opened their floor space to accommodate entry of 1400 partner banks and credit unions. Their current request includes permission for management of electronic financial transactions. Simultaneously, Wal-Mart has applied in Utah to open a bank as an “industrial loan company” to process credit card and debit transactions. This is the same state that approved United Healthcare’s band ownership in 2002, paving the way for direct offering of HSAs.

Why all the interest in HSAs? Well the fees for managing the projected $75 billion in IRA-like investments in the next 5 years is not bad. But the real pay-dirt is in taking a piece of the action off of each debit card transaction. Remember health care is 16% of the economy, with a positively huge amount of transactions. Follow the money. That’s what Wal-Mart is doing. Under one roof, imagine health delivery in the form of care counseling, pharmaceuticals and prevention, home health technologies set to launch in 2010, health finance management on the back of Medicare Part D, and HSAs are all mixing and accelerating. That’s quite a health care brew!

http://blog.healthpolitics.com/weblog/2006/04/pig_farms_and_walmart.html

[JPZenger]

1. Great Movie: The High Cost of Low Prices

I saw the movie Walmart: the high cost of low prices on DVD (it is available for rent from netflix.com). It was much better than I expected. It comprehensively covered all the problems with Walmart, beyond the obvious issues about wages, benefits and impacts upon local stores. If you watch it, be sure to watch the funny fake Walmart commercials on the extras part of the DVD.

Some of the most interesting parts were interviews with Walmart managers who left the company. For example, one guy said he was a dedicated employee who "bleed walmart blue." He was assigned to visit factories in other countries that made products for Walmart to make sure that the factories were following Walmart's requirements for humane treatment of workers. He saw all kinds of problems and rushed back to Bentonville to tell the execs what he learned. He thought they would be as shocked as he was, and would make sure that the conditions improved. Instead, they fired him.

The film also shows how employees in overseas sweatshops were forced to lie to people sent to oversea conditions in the factories.

They also had a segment on the high rate of crime in Walmart parking lots across the country. Even though the company had completed a study that detailed the problems, the company did nothing. After one person was kidnapped and murdered from a Walmart parking lot, it was realized that her kidnapping was caught on Walmart's outdoor cameras. However, there was no one watching the cameras because the only reason they were placed outside the story was to try to find evidence of union activity. In another case, they found that Walmart had 4 security guards and 200 cameras watching their merchandise inside the story, but no guards and no cameras watching the outside.

They also covered anti-union activity, and how Walmart closed the only union store in North America (which was in Canada). If a manager hears the smallest rumor of a union, he is required to call HQ immediately. That afternoon, a team will fly to the store on a corporate jet to take over control of the store to kill any potential of a union. The managers are trained to identify employees in advance who might possibly become union leaders.

[msgadget]

2. Thanks for that movie review,

I'm going to see it (maybe one day when I'm too cheerful! :)). I have The Wal-Mart Effect on my audiobook playlist and, after your review of the move, I know it's going to be worse than I expected. This is the first time I've read about the high rate of crime in the parking lots and why!

[Lisa]

3. definitely worth seeing the movie ...

I bought a DVD copy as a gift for the local library -- the waiting list is more than a hundred names long. I screened it myself (just to make sure the disk was undamaged, of course!), and it really does a good job. I know someone who lived in one of the Canadian cities where a Wal-Mart attempted to unionize, and the company really does fight dirty.

[msgadget]

4. What a great idea, Lisa

I'll do the same when I get a copy! The more people realize the cost of low cost, the more I hope will realize how much cheap stuff really costs. Just about a month ago I learned they're going into organic foods and groaned. At this size they can afford to raise wages, provide health insurance, etc., they just won't.