Well, they did it: Maryland passed an requirement that employers with more than 10,000 employees pay at least 8% of their payroll on health care, or pay into the state’s fund. This apparently affects Wal-Mart, and only Wal-Mart.
So Maryland taxpayers won’t be paying Wal-Mart not to insure its workers anymore. Fancy that.
As for Wal-Mart’s threats to pull out of the state, it will be interesting to see if they bluff or follow through. Do they a. just give up the state’s business altogether, or b. do they just take a lower profit margin, or c. do they raise prices? My guess is some combination of b. and c. Let’s remember that the old “they’ll just pass it on to the consumer” line depends on what prices the customers are willing to pay for its products. Wal-Mart will charge what it can, or leave the state entirely.
Business interests often claim that lower profits will cause them to stop providing value to the public: We hear this from pharmaceutical companies, claiming that we won’t get the benefit of their vaunted R&D if they don’t charge American consumers twice as much as they do others; we hear it in other intellectual property cases (e.g. public domain), claiming that this or that kind of valuable work won’t be done unless we make it possible for the holders to be extravagantly compensated. But it’s just as worthwhile for the public to know how much it’s getting for its dollar as for business.
Edited for clarity.
