According to estimates from the USDA and in house, approximately 18% of food stamps in the US went to Wal-Mart - $14 billion dollars. They are going to be losing a significant amount of revenue because of the roll-backs.
Because of their low labor expenditures (reliance on temp/part-time workforce with sub-standard wages), the majority of their employee "benefits" are subsidized by Federal, State, and Local taxpayers.
Since a lot of the Wal-Mart profit margin depends on government subsidies to extend the spending ability of their targeted (and pretty much dependent) market base (i.e., the $20K - $40K a year income household), the new requirement from the Feds for some of those customers to share the burden of the ACA mandatory health care program outweighs any additional leverage Wal-Mart might get for providing ACA approved "wellness clinics" or basic health care (that will be under regulation) in some of their facilities - especially in locations where there's potential basic health care competition.
So, a family of four in a state where Medicare was not expanded who qualifies for food stamps might still have to pay $25 a month for mandatory health care under the federal ACA exchange; that's less for them to spend at Wal-Mart than before. Doesn't matter that they now have health care access they didn't have before, it just matters that they have less to spend.
Of course, paying employees more, supporting a raise in the minimum wage and single payer, stopping the race to the bottom line so that working people at the "lower levels" don't have to depend on taxpayers to cover their basic needs never crosses the minds of Wal-Mart board members who "work" at that insurlar, isolated executive level along with all the other of the plutocracy...
Haele
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