Friday, June 15, 2007

Wal-Mart, the Solution to Our Health Care Woes? or Ain't No Freaking Way That's Gonna Happen

Dear America,
Below is a response to the Kentucky Progress Blog Entry "WalMart Shoppers Should Demand Health Reform".

Mr. Progress,
Do you think they will have the production of diagnoses moved over to China once they have determined that diagnoses from American sources are less cost efficient?

That would make good sense. Chinese doctors are not hampered with malpractice insurance fees, and they do have an overabundant supply of organs to be donated to people who need them.

But even if they don't do this, they still might have problems managing the staff in their clinics. Like when one of their doctors wants to take off to go on one of those Pharmaceutical Company Sponsored Golf outings, and it might mean overtime for another doctor, they just can't put the doctor who wants off on the night shift until he quits like they might do to a dairy manager. They won't be able to lock doctors in the building overnight until they are finished seeing patients although they will probably have them on salary so they won't be able to complain about uncompensated overtime.

For Wal-mart to get into the health care industry may require a complete change in their corporate culture, where they may have to change the way they look at their employees. They can't just look at a Doctor as one of the expendable pods who stock their shelves, they actually will need to make an actual investment in a human being that doesn't sit on their board of directors.

It is in this area I think they will fail as they have absolutely no experience with retaining an employee with actual skills that other businesses may be willing to pay more for or providing the benefit packages that professionals such as Doctors and nurses are used to.

I actually know some of the folks who worked at Walmart.com (which was actually a buyout of a failed tool seller from the dotcom bubble) and what does Wal-mart do for the computer programmers there? They put security cameras in their cubicles and made them pay for the pencils they used and the coffee they drank and to really rub their face in the pile of poo that their job had become they made them do The Wal-Mart Cheer.

Of course, when they all raised hell and threatened to walk off the job, in a rare "pro-labor" move the suit responsible for those changes was promptly fired. But the "Bob" who replaced him would probably have done the same thing, and I will be damn surprised if they don't try to get someone who spent a decade of his life earning a title in front of his name to shake his ass while yelling "Squiggly!"*.


*For those uninitiated to The Wal-Mart Cheer, "Squiggly" is what they yell when they get to the "~" between 'l' and 'M'. And yes, you are supposed to shake your butt when you scream it or you are just not a "team player".
KP's Reply:
Maybe, Rob, but I think they will probably just run it like their optical centers and pharmacies.


Probably accurate, but oh-so BORING. I guess my biggest problem with Wal-Mart is that its blatantly unfair that poor people can go there and pay less for things that cost twice as much as Neiman-Marcus. So for exposing the dangers of Wal-Mart to an unsuspecting populace, Your Welcome America,

Your Humble Servant,
Rob R. Baron ~ Esquire

2 comments:

David Adams said...

Rob, can you help me understand the Fletcher administration's assertion that limiting supply of health services through Certificate of Need keeps prices low? I just don't get it.

Rob. R. Baron said...

Hey, he's the doctor, why wouldn't he want to make health care more affordable? But I thought we discussed this, and I already said I agreed with you. I would LOVE to see my local so-called health care provider get some competition. They might actually make an investment in not treating their patients like cattle. But luckily I have good coverage, I don't have to wait so much as the commoners.

Then again that might have been the evil Democratic voice that I sometimes hear in my head that makes me type crazy liberal things under a different name.

May Hannity be praised and Colmes be damned!