PolicyGuy

Friday, December 30, 2005


Would You Like Health Insurance With That?
Another innovation propelled by the World of Wal-Mart: health insurance at the store.

From today's Wall Street Journal:

Sam's Club, the membership-warehouse division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., plans to unveil a new health-insurance offering for its customers on Jan. 4, making such a service available in all of its U.S. stores for the first time.

Sam's Club, with nearly 600 U.S. stores, will allow small-business owners with Sam's Club memberships to purchase health-insurance plans for their employees through Salt Lake City-based insurance broker Extend Benefits Group LLC. The coverage is available elsewhere, but Extend Benefits will charge Sam's Club members lower administrative fees: $150 to establish an account instead of $500; and $4 a month for administration rather than $5.


The Journal notes that membership fees make up a substantial portion of Sam's net income, and that this insurance program may help justify higher membership fees. Good for them, perhaps: we need more alternatives for securing insurance. Corporate employment and government programs must not be the only options.

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"Justice Louis D. Brandeis'?s metaphor of the states as "laboratories" for policy experiments ... had almost nothing to do with federalism and everything to do with his commitment to scientific socialism. .... To this day, it continues to inhibit a truly experimental, federalist politics." -- Michael S. Greve

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