http://alwayslowprices.net/

I agree that expecting the employer to pick up health insurance costs is a false economy — however, at the same time we should address the causes of high health care costs (odious regulation and limitation of competition).

Meanwhile, Wal Mart should not be coddled as an example of a free market success story. If not for the heavy subsidization of the welfare system (keeping its employees surviving) and the convoluted infrastructure use and tax policy that subsidizes the cost of trucking at the expense of civilian motorists, it would not be too successful in its present form.

On the health care issue, consider the "free market" system. I don't know about you, but when I worked for an employer, I chose the health care plan they offered. It was easy and affordable. No big deal. I got a non-taxable benefit, my employer paid a tax-deductible benefit as incentive. Everyone won.

When I left that employer and became self-employed, health insurance was one of my first decisions. I saw the prices that I had to pay out of my own pocket, because my business is too small to get the tax benefits of an employer-sponsored plan, and I did what everyone in the free market does. I shopped around. I let competition work what little magic it could in this convoluted system to find the best coverage for the lowest price.

Now, isn't that what we should do in general? Why tie health insurance to an employer through tax incentives originally designed to benefit highly-paid, white collar workers? All talk seems to be centered around extending that system to lower paid, blue collar workers. That's dumb. It's tax policy as social manipulator. Free the tax implications from the employer binding, and we'll see competitive, free market reform. Laws like this anti-Wal-Mart law achieve the exact opposite of what its supporters allegedly want.

Thus, the average man on the street sees this and thinks "good for New York for sticking up for people who otherwise couldn't get health care."

Incidentally, Wal-Mart is not blameless here either. The company has allegedly provided its own employees with instructions on how to collect state and federal health and welfare benefits — effectively benefitting from state support itself. I'd not be surprised if it pursued a similar tack in New York too, which means that either way, New Yorkers pay.