The Maryland General Assembly on Thursday overrode Gov. Robert Ehrlich's (R) veto of a bill that will require employers with more than 10,000 workers in the state to spend at least 8% of their payroll on employee health care or to pay into a fund for the uninsured, USA Today reports (Armour, USA Today, 1/13). The House voted 88-50 to overturn Ehrlich's veto, and the Senate voted 30-17. The law will take effect in 30 days. Four companies have 10,000 or more employees in Maryland, but Wal-Mart is the only company that will be affected by the law (Green, Baltimore Sun, 1/13). Wal-Mart employs about 17,000 people in Maryland (Wagner, Washington Post, 1/13). The retail chain has faced "severe criticism" nationwide because it insures less than half of its U.S. employees, and Wal-Mart employees "routinely show up, in larger numbers than employees of other retailers, on state Medicaid rolls," the New York Times reports (Barbaro, New York Times, 1/13). Ehrlich has argued that the bill would be an unjustified government intrusion into business (Washington Post, 1/13). Wal-Mart executives have "strongly suggested" that they might build outside of Maryland a proposed distribution center employing about 1,000 people if the bill became law, the New York Times reports.

Reaction
State Sen. Gloria Lawlah (D), a sponsor of the bill, said, "This is not a Wal-Mart bill, it's a Medicaid bill. This bill says to the conglomerates, 'Don't dump the employees that you refuse to insure into our Medicaid systems.'" Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA said, "You're going to see similar legislation being introduced and debated in at least three dozen more states, and at least some of those states will end up also requiring large employers to provide health care coverage" (New York Times, 1/13). However, Nate Hurst, a spokesperson for Wal-Mart, said, "This vote was never about health care. This was about partisan politics in the Maryland gubernatorial race." Hurst added, "In voting to override this veto, the Senate has taken a giant step backward and placed the special interests of Washington, D.C., union leaders ahead of the well-being of the people they serve" (Ward, Washington Times, 1/13). Before the vote, Ehrlich said, "I just know when I walk into the boardroom of a business in the next 90 days, I will be asked by a CEO, 'What does this mean for the business environment?' ... And I'm not going to have a good answer" (Baltimore Sun, 1/13). AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said, "What the Maryland victory shows is that the tide is turning, because working people are not just fed up, they are ready to get active to set our country in a different direction, one state at a time." However, Bruce Josten, executive vice president of government affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said, "This will accomplish very little, and this totally misses the mark, which is to take appropriate steps to slow the kind of double-digit health care increases we've seen. This is so far off the mark it's incredible" (USA Today, 1/13).

Broadcast Coverage
NPR's "Morning Edition" on Friday reported on Maryland lawmakers' approval of the measure. The segment includes comments from Sarah Clark, spokesperson for Wal-Mart; Paul Kelly, senior vice president for federal and state government affairs at the Retail Industry Leaders Association; state Rep. Salima Siler Marriott (D); Thomas Middleton (D), chair of the state's Senate Finance Committee; and Naomi Walker, director of state legislative programs at AFL-CIO (Keyes, "Morning Edition," NPR, 1/13).

The complete segment is available online in RealPlayer.