Providing Quality Health Benefits for Our Associates
By Sally Welborn, Sr. Vice President, Global Benefits, Walmart
October 07, 2014
In the U.S., the 1.3 million people who work at our stores, clubs and
distribution centers are vital to a great experience for the 140 million
customers shopping with us each week. Wefre in business because our associates
bring us their unique skills and talents – and so we do our absolute best to
offer all the benefits that come with a great job, particularly affordable
health insurance.
Anyone who has been following the news for the last several years knows that
health care is a major topic of debate. From doctorsf visits and prescriptions
to insurance premiums, health care costs have increased for all of us –
individuals and the companies that insure them – each year. Knowing this,
Walmart continues to work with health care providers and professionals, using
our size and influence to negotiate the best rates and options for our
associates.
Like every company, Walmart continues to face rising health care costs. This
year, the expenses were significant and led us to make some tough decisions as
we begin our annual enrollment. As a result, today we announced that our
associates will see an increase in premiums for 2015. For example, our most
popular and lowest cost associate-only plan will increase by $3.50 to $21.90 per
pay period – still half the average premium other retail employees pay.
Wefre also changing eligibility for some part-time associates. We will
continue to provide affordable health care to all eligible associates,
including part-time, who work more than 30 hours. However, similar to other
retailers like Target, Home Depot, Walgreens and Trader Joefs, we will no longer
be providing health benefits to part-time associates who work less than 30
hours. This will impact about 2% of our total U.S. workforce. We will be
working with a specialist, HealthCompare, to personally guide our
associates through the process of finding the right, affordable health care.
We are proud of the health care plans we offer, which are among the best in
the retail industry, as well as the new benefits wefve introduced over the past
two years for our associates. This includes a vision plan that launched this
year and our innovativeCenters of Excellence program that began in 2013 that covers
select spine and heart procedures at no cost to our associates. We expanded Centers
of Excellence this year to include knee and hip replacement surgeries and,
for 2015, wefre excited to be adding breast, lung and colorectal cancer
care at the Mayo Clinic.
We donft make these decisions lightly, and the fact remains that our plans
exceed those of our peers in the retail industry. Our premiums remain well below
the industry average compiled by expert Aon Hewitt. We also continue to
pay the majority of health care costs for associates covered under our medical
plans. For example, on average we cover more than 60% of our associatesf total
health care costs and more than 75% of their premium costs. In contrast, the
retail industry pays, on average, about 54% of total health care costs and 68%
of employee premiums.
All of our eligible associates – both full and part-time – will continue to
benefit from our health care options that include no lifetime maximum,
preventative care covered at 100%, and $250 up to $1,000 to help pay for medical
expenses. We believe these options are among the best in the retail
industry.
As our associates continue to work hard for our customers, we will continue
working hard to keep their benefits as affordable as possible, enhance the
quality of health care they receive and make the cost more transparent, which
will benefit everyone.