Labor leaders: R.I. must stop requiring taxpayers to subsidize health care for corporations

PROVIDENCE — With the start of the new legislative session a month and a half away, Rhode Island labor leaders are publicly calling on lawmakers to close “a loophole” that allows large corporations to shift the cost of their employees’ health insurance to taxpayer-funded Medicaid programs.

“There is a loophole in the Rhode Island health-care system allowing certain large corporations to avoid their responsibility to provide adequate coverage to their workers. Instead they shift employee health-care costs to the state budget from their own balance sheet,” said George Nee, president of the RI AFL-CIO.

Naming names, he said: “Successful companies like Walmart, CVS and Bank of America cost taxpayers millions of dollars a year by exploiting this loophole. This is corporate welfare and needs to be stopped.”

“Clearly these companies can afford to pay more to ensure the people who work for them have access to quality affordable health care,” added Patrick Quinn, vice-president of 1199 Service Employees International Union New England. “High-quality health care is, and ought to be, a fundamental human right.... The hard-working people of Rhode Island, especially the people struggling to make ends meet in the service economy — people like home health-care aides, food service workers, janitors, clerks and cashiers — should not have to see their tax dollars used to subsidize corporate greed.”

Read more: https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20191122/labor-leaders-ri-must-stop-requiring-taxpayers-to-subsidize-health-care-for-corporations