A bill that shakes down big employers

Published February 10, 2006 at midnight

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Turns out the legislature's "get Wal-Mart" bill would not target only Wal-Mart after all. No, it's much worse.

House Bill 1316, by Rep. Judy Solano, D-Brighton, would force private Colorado companies with more than 3,500 workers to either commit 11 percent of payroll costs to cover employee medical care or pay any "shortfall" to the state. That's higher than the 8 percent of payrolls mandated by Maryland in its recently passed "fair share" health law.

Colorado's bill would no longer flay only nonunion Wal-Mart. It would also hammer other major employers, including the University of Denver, HCA-HealthOne, Centura Health, Exempla Health, IBM . . . and even unionized grocery chains Safeway and King Soopers.

Solano makes no bones about her object: This society must provide "health care for everyone" or make companies "responsible to the community they locate in." In our view, employees and consumers are much better suited than legislators to decide what's "responsible."

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