LA Times editorial on Wal-mart's decision to increase health benefits

EDITORIAL
Why pick on Wal-Mart?
March, 2 2006

WAL-MART'S RECENT DECISION to offer health coverage to more of its 1.4 million U.S. employees is a little like getting a date with a favorite crush because she feels sorry for you. Sure, you're happy to have it, but you wish it had happened for a different reason.

--------------

The article goes on to point out that getting Wal-mart to insure more employees isn't a true fix for a broken health care system:

...Although healthcare spending is expected to jump to $4 trillion in the next decade — to 20% of the nation's gross domestic product — the number of uninsured is increasing by more than a million people a year, and Americans are no healthier than citizens of countries that spend half what we do...

Fortunately, the public appears to be growing so tired of the problem that national healthcare reform is all but inevitable. ...momentum is growing again for a "single payer" government agency that would insure everyone in the country...