Fire the Handicapped

Actually, just don't hire them in the first place--that's one element of Wal-Mart's strategery for cutting health care costs:

To discourage unhealthy job applicants, Ms. Chambers suggests that Wal-Mart arrange for "all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering)."

The memo acknowledged that Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, had to walk a fine line in restraining benefit costs because critics had attacked it for being stingy on wages and health coverage. Ms. Chambers acknowledged that 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart's 1.33 million United States employees were uninsured or on Medicaid.

Wal-Mart executives said the memo was part of an effort to rein in benefit costs, which to Wall Street's dismay have soared by 15 percent a year on average since 2002. Like much of corporate America, Wal-Mart has been squeezed by soaring health costs. The proposed plan, if approved, would save the company more than $1 billion a year by 2011.

In an interview, Ms. Chambers said she was focusing not on cutting costs, but on serving employees better by giving them more choices on their benefits.

"We are investing in our benefits that will take even better care of our associates," she said. "Our benefit plan is known today as being generous."

Ms. Chambers also said that she made her recommendations after surveying employees about how they felt about the benefits plan. "This is not about cutting," she said. "This is about redirecting savings to another part of their benefit plans."

Not about cutting...reminds me of the French explanation for the bomb that blew up the Rainbow Warrior--IIRC, they said it wasn't a bomb, but a device designed to explode, or words to that effect.

Oh--if you want to read the whole memo (.pdf warning) here it is.

That you'd even have memos circulating about how to Scrooge employees out of the already miserly benefits Wal-Mart offers explains a great deal as to the state of the nation...we've got a GDP of almost $12 trillion dollars...and Wal-Mart wants to nickel and dime their $8 dollar an hour employees even more.