A bill introduced in the Rhode Island General Assembly this month would require companies with over 1,000 employees in the state to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on health care.
The bill's sponsor, Rep. Amy Rice, D.-District 72, said the goal of the bill is "to get employers to pay ... their fair share" of health care costs.
Companies affected by the bill would have the option of either upping their health care spending to eight percent, the national average, or depositing the difference in a state "Fair Share Health Care" fund, which would be used to provide health care for uninsured Rhode Islanders.
Rice estimated there are 38 companies in the state with over 1,000 employees. Only six or fewer of the 38 spend less than the required 8 percent on health care, she said. The Rhode Island bill does not contain an exception or lower requirement for non-profit groups, Rice said.
Brown employs over 3,000 individuals, but it is unclear if the University would be affected. Molly de Ramel, director of media relations, said she was not familiar with the legislation.
A similar bill became law earlier this month in Maryland, where the Democratic-controlled state legislature overrode Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich's veto, which he used last year when the legislature passed the bill. The Maryland law set the threshold at 10,000 employees, instead of the 1,000 in the Rhode Island legislation.
There are four companies in Maryland with over 10,000 employees. Grocery chain Giant Food and military contractor Northrup Grumman both meet the 8 percent requirement, and the third, The Johns Hopkins University, spends the 6 percent required for non-profits in the Maryland bill.
The fourth, Wal-Mart, was the only company affected by the Maryland bill. It spends just shy of 8 percent on health care in Maryland.
"Wal-Mart employees along with others are now being forced into the Medicaid market ... and the uncompensated system" of emergency care for the uninsured, said Democratic State Sen. Gloria Lawlah, the sponsor of the Maryland bill.
Kelly Hobbs, a spokesperson for Wal-Mart, said the Rhode Island legislation "won't im-prove access to health care or control the soaring cost of health coverage in Rhode Island (and is) designed to impose mandates on large employers only." She said the legislation is unfriendly to business and could damage the state economy.
Hobbs criticized the legis-lation, calling it a "special interest bill" that "fails to add-ress health care issues."
Though Lawlah noted the Maryland bill could be seen as an attack on Wal-Mart, Rice emphasized this "should not be called a Wal-Mart bill in Rhode Island" because it affects several other com-panies, though she does have "serious questions about Wal-Mart's practices."
Wal-Mart employs 2,117 people in Rhode Island at nine locations and in 2004 paid more than $4.1 million in state and local taxes and collected more than $18.3 million in sales taxes, according to their Web site. It was not clear if Wal-Mart was one of the companies that would be affected by the legislation in Rhode Island.
The bill has run into opposition from local business.
"We do not believe any mandated health care policy is the answer," said Bethany Costello, director of public relations at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce. She said the chamber is "still studying the logistics" of the bill.
Rice drafted a version of the bill last year, but this year had help from Americans for Health Care, a project of the Ser-vice Employee's International Union.
Ann Rhodes, director of Rhode Island for Health Care, the local arm of Americans for Health Care, said the organization is currently in-volved in similar campaigns in eight states.
Americans for Health Care "worked closely" with the Maryland legislature and is now helping Rice with her campaign, she said. Similar bills were defeated in Indiana and Wisconsin, according to Hobbs.
Rhodes said she believes it is "important to have employer responsibility" for health care. "We don't feel that it's appropriate for businesses to externalize their costs," by forcing employees to turn to government programs or emergency rooms, she added.
Hobbs said Wal-Mart is "working with lawmakers across the state to educate them about what we are doing for our associates and the coverage we do provide," Hobbs said.
Of 1.3 million Wal-Mart associates, over three-quarters have health care, either through a company plan, a spouse's plan or Medicare or Medicaid, she said.
Rice said she hopes her bill will become law, but that more needs to be done about the state of health care in the United States.
"I think we can do better than this bill," she said.
