[warch]

Paying unemployment insurance, payroll tax, workman's comp, and all the other garbage would've sunk him even sooner. This is the environment that liberals create in their lust to punish oil company executives and Republicans.

I know many citizens who have been quite relieved to find they have pesky garbage like workers comp and funding as they look for new work, enabling them to keep their homes in the face of hospital bills or outsourcing. That allows them a chance to stay afloat.

Most of the small business owners I know that have struggled and failed (besides just having bad business sense, or faced smarter competition) have been most burdened by the cost of healthcare. Those that have succeeded have been greatly assisted by startup loans, small business grants, local city investments, and tax breaks. Also, having a community that can afford your product or services helps.

As a liberal, it’s true that I feel little, ok, no pity for the weasels at Enron or Walmart. Particularly when good workers of all levels get screwed out of earnings as the executive profits soar. Perhaps I'm silly, but I think that you can have ethical and strong, profitable, creative business. What you see as burden, I see as investment in creating a good place to live for the majority of people. Quality of life. I don’t want to live in the Midwest of Argentina.

“There isn't a single measure in which the U.S. excels in the health arena. We spend half of the world's health care bill and we are less healthy than all the other rich countries... Fifty-five years ago, we were one of the healthiest countries in the world. What changed? We have increased the gap between rich and poor. Nothing determines the health of a population more than the gap between rich and poor.”
— Dr. Stephen Bezruchka, School of Public Health, University of Washington

That Walmart manages to keep so many of their employees on government assisted healthcare that I must pay for, while they work and earn profits for, rather than take that responsibility....that's annoying. So there is a growing underclass, working their asses off, and they get even a little sick, or their kids, just a bit, and end up in the emergency room on my tab, probably far sicker and definitely more costly than if they had the security of care.

Is you state looking into this? From the Mpls Star Tribune:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. does not want Minnesotans to know how many of its workers in this state receive public health care assistance.

The world's largest retailer has denounced as a public-relations ploy legislation -- which some state legislators have dubbed the "anti-Wal-Mart bill" -- that would create a public list of companies whose workers are enrolled in MinnesotaCare and other government-funded health care programs.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based retail giant recently sent two executives to St. Paul to lobby against the bill, which the Legislature may vote on in special session this month. Wal-Mart also sent a two-page letter describing its health care benefits to every legislator in the state.

"This is not health care reform," said Nate Hurst, public and government relations manager for Wal-Mart. "This is a campaign against Wal-Mart."

But proponents of the bill, whose chief author is Sen. Becky Lourey, DFL-Kerrick, say the public has a right to know which employers have become a drain on the state's public health care system. They say the bill does not target Wal-Mart in particular but is meant to see how the state can work with companies to provide better health care programs.

In the last fiscal year, the state government spent $270.2 million for MinnesotaCare, a program that provides assistance for people who don't have access to affordable insurance. Yet no one in the state government knows which employers have the most workers enrolled in the program.

"If it's true what people say, that big multinational companies are outsourcing health care to taxpayers, then it would be good to have a handle on which ones," said Rep. Sheldon Johnson, DFL-St. Paul. "It's just information."

But it's information that Wal-Mart fears, and for good reason. In other states that have compiled such lists, Wal-Mart has come at or near the top among employers with workers enrolled in state medical assistance. Once such findings are made public, they can be used by opponents of Wal-Mart to stir up support for punitive measures against big-box retailers.

In Wisconsin, for instance, the Department of Health and Family Services reported last week that Wal-Mart employees topped the list of BadgerCare recipients, a state health care program for low-income residents.

A Wisconsin state representative has introduced a bill that would force big-box retailers to reimburse the state for providing the health care needs of their under-paid and under-insured employees.

The bill would place a graduated 1 percent to 2 percent tax on gross receipts on any store that exceeds $20 million in sales in a taxable year, and that allocates less than 10 percent of its payroll to health insurance for its employees. The bill applies only if the retailer fails to pay full-time, entry-level employees at least $22,000 a year, or about $10.58 per hour; or if more than 25 percent of the retailer's workforce is part-time. The revenue would go to the state's Medical Assistance trust fund. ...