Walmart sticks to its word by backing Obama reforms

US supermarket giant Walmart has taken the unusual step of providing public backing for the White House’s proposed healthcare reforms as part of a pledge to align the company’s lobbying activities with the thrust of its corporate responsibility programmes.

The largest private sector employer in the US has said in an open letter to Barack Obama that it will attempt to ‘advance what we believe are important proposals that should be included in the current efforts to reform our nation’s healthcare system’.

The proposed requirements endorsed by Walmart are at the centre of Obama’s efforts to provide universal healthcare in the US, and propose that all but small employers be required to pay for the reforms.

Of Walmart’s 1.4 million employees, five per cent are uninsured, and only 52 per cent receive health insurance from their employer. In the whole of the US, 46 million people are uninsured.

Walmart’s support for Obama’s proposals represents a break from most other corporations and business lobby groups in the US.

In Walmart’s own industry, the National Retail Federation has said it has been ‘flabbergasted’ by the supermarket’s stance, and argues that the Obama reforms would be ‘the single most destructive thing you could do to the healthcare system shy of a single-payer system’.    

The US Chamber of Commerce, which represents three million businesses, said most of its members oppose an employer mandate and that Walmart is supporting ‘the worst incarnation, the most dangerous policy’.

Walmart, however, says it will campaign for the proposed policy changes. ‘We are for shared responsibility. Not every business can make the same contribution, but everyone must make some contribution,’ it said.

When the company unveiled a new commitment to CSR four years ago, one of its promises was to back public policy changes – including on universal healthcare – which it felt would enhance its social programmes.