Why Don't They Practice What They Preach?

If you work for Walmart, do you have the company insurance? Does it stink, or what? Have you noticed the options that you have are getting smaller and smaller, while the price is on the left side of ridiculous? Have you ever sat there in dread, knowing that the meeting was coming up where they were going to tell you what your options were(take it or leave it) and about the fantastic wonderful new insurance programs that were coming? Walmart insurance reminds me of an old expression that I've heard tossed around a few times. It's like polishing a turd. The policies that they offer are so over priced, and the ones that aren't overpriced are insurance in name only. Why hasn't Walmart ever considered this: In every town where there is a Walmart located, there are at least one hundred employees who are going to need insurance because they don't have it or can't get it from their spouse's job. Why doesn't Walmart shop that pool of at least one hundred potential clients around to the local insurance companies? I have to believe that there are at least seven different small companies that would love the chance of bidding on a group policy for the one hundred or so associates in any given store. And the options that each individual company could give to the associates would more than outdo any thing that they can come up with in Bentonville. Plus, it would pump a lot of revenue into the local economy. Isn't that something that Walmart always takes a public relations hit for? So you would have all these local businesses with a vested interest in Walmart, and you would have local associates getting a better deal on insurance, plus, they would have a local place to take care of any problems that they had with their policies. Can someone please tell me the down side to it? I expect the folks in Bentonville who process the claims would have a problem, but a company that large could easily assimilate those associates into other jobs, couldn't they? Besides, anyone who has ever had to file a claim on their crappy Walmart policy knows that Blue Cross and Blue Shield who quickly tell you they only administer the policy, isn't a big loss if they were done away with. How much do they charge to do that anyway? I can only imagine what that adds to the price of the policy that isn't very good in the first place, can you? So mull it over and bring it up at the next grass roots meeting. (For the uninitiated, that's when Walmart pulls out a big PR coup and "listens" to the suggestions from the associates.) You know you'll thank me later.