July 1, 2009 10:51AM # Why Wal-Mart Supports an Employer Mandate By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) --- SHARE ![wal-mart-logo](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/download-remote-images/www.cato.org/172395922072/walmart_logo.jpg?itok=SJfMHR3_) A couple of years ago, I shared a cab to the airport with a Wal-Mart lobbyist, who told me that Wal-Mart supports an “employer mandate.” An employer mandate is a legal requirement that employers provide a government-defined package of health benefits to their workers. Only Hawaii and [Massachusetts](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10268) have enacted such a law. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Wal-Mart is a [capitalist success story](http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2009/06/walmart-backs-employer-health-care-mandate.html). At the time of our conversation, this lobbyist was helping Wal-Mart fight off employer-mandate legislation in [dozens of states](http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2009/06/walmart-backs-employer-health-care-mandate.html). Those measures were specifically designed to hurt Wal-Mart, and were underwritten by the unions and union shops that were losing jobs and business to Wal-Mart. But it all became clear when the lobbyist explained the reason for Wal-Mart’s position: “Target’s health-benefits costs are lower.” I have no idea what Target’s or Wal-Mart’s health-benefits costs are. Let’s say that Target spends $5,000 per worker on health benefits and Wal-Mart spends $10,000. An employer mandate that requires both retail giants to spend $9,000 per worker would have no effect on Wal-Mart. But it would cripple one of Wal-Mart’s chief competitors. So yesterday’s news that [Wal-Mart is publicly endorsing a “sensible and equitable” employer mandate](http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2009/06/walmart-backs-employer-health-care-mandate.html) — i.e., a mandate that hurts Target but not Wal-Mart — didn’t come as a surprise to me. It merely confirmed what I learned in a cab on the way to the airport: Wal-Mart has gone native. That great symbol of the benefits of free-market competition now joins its erstwhile enemies among the legions of rent-seeking weasels who would rather run to government for protection than earn their keep by making people’s lives better. In 2007, Wal-Mart officially joined the [Church of Universal Coverage](https://www.cato.org/?s=church+of+universal+coverage) when it entered one of those countless strange-bedfellows coalitions with the Service Employees International Union. At the time, I [criticized](http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2009/06/walmart-backs-employer-health-care-mandate.html) Wal-Mart for “self-congratulatory puffery” and “jump\[ing\] on the big-government bandwagon.” I also criticized then-CEO Lee Scott for spouting economic nonsense. (I later learned that Scott was not amused.) This is so much worse than that. ##### Related Tags [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).