Wal-Mart to open more in-store health clinics

[BR_Parkway]

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT - news), which has been facing fierce criticism over employee benefits, said on Thursday it will open more than 50 in-store health clinics this year and make further changes to workers' health-care plans.

Run by third parties, the clinics are open to shoppers and employees, and are staffed by doctors who can treat non-emergency illnesses such as strep throat. Costs average between $45 and $50 per visit, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said.

Wal-Mart said many of the patients who used the clinics in an initial nine-store pilot were uninsured, and would have gone to a hospital emergency room to be treated instead.

<snip>

Wal-Mart has been severely criticized over its health-care benefits. Critics contend the plans cost too much for many of Wal-Mart's low-income employees, who turn to government aid instead. Wal-Mart is the largest U.S. private sector employer with about 1.3 million U.S. workers.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060223/bs_nm/retail_walmart_dc

Be interesting to see how this plays out.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060223/bs_nm/retail_walmart_dc

[Dunvegan]

1. Create an emergency, and then charge for it.

Welcome to W-World.

[The Pain]

3. I have to add

You know the average WalMart Employee work length (how long they are employed) Is about 6 months.
That's what you call a transient work force. Why does someone who works for somewhere at the max about half a year need a union and health care? Maybe someone like a Ford Truck plant that works there for years and years, but not someone who could simply up and quit the next day because he finds a better paying job 2 blocks over.

It just doesn't make any sense to me.

As for the person below me- have you ever payed a medical bill in your life? A check up runs about 50 with insurance at a regular doctor's office, let alone the strep test. 50 dollars with no insurance is god damn INCREDIBLE for a price. Highway robbery to doctors with their own practices, let alone what you would Ever pay a hospital for.

[kcass1954]

5. But if they had a union and health insurance, I bet the turnover rate

would go down.

[Dunvegan]

6. The WallyWorld/Union issue is a self-perpetuation one

Organize a union and you'd have people who would get benefits, a pension, and some work security.

No union? Pitch everyone out before they qualify for Federally-mandated benefits, never let anyone below VP level get a pension, and write in invisible-ink that there will be zero work security.

Meanwhile...give sub-par assembly-line care for cheap (and only for colds/flu/transient illness/first-aid) with Docs-in-a-Box.

I can't think that this will, in any run long or short, be really good for most people.

If you need medication that WallyWorld has in it's pharm, you'll get cheap treatment from middling doctors.

If you need a CAT scan, mammogram, diagnosis for a new chronic illness...forget it.

And, if you ever stop in very ill, you'll probably be cross-checked to be excluded from future employment.

[niyad]

2. wow--it's ONLY going to cost them $40-$50. soooooo generous of

the greedy bastards at wally-world. for a sore throat, no less. what a con job.

[gizmo1979]

4. Chinese Doctors.

Or they just scan you and someone in India makes the call?

[Dunvegan]

8. Yes. It is possible for a doctor to diagnose and treat without seeing you.

It's also possible for a doctor to spend less than five minutes for an easy no-brainer non-life-threatening diagnosis.

I do not like Doc in a Box, dear Cuz.
I do not like them, Sam (Walton) I wuz.

[SaveElmer]

7. So this seems like a bad idea...

I mean if you shop at WalMart, do you really want to be there when sick people are coming in and out of the store for medical care...

[Dunvegan]

9. And remember...the Customs division of the Dept. of Homeland Security...

...is now opening and holding any pharmaceuticals bought from Canada at lower prices.

WallyWorld for Lower Prices! (ahem)