posted February 24, 2006 12:46 PM              

lol..
Patients can walk in without an appointment, and shop while waiting to be seen by a doctor. In some stores, a pager similar to those used at restaurants informs patients when the doctor is ready.

Wal-Mart to open more in-store health clinics

All Reuters NewsCHICAGO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. , which has been facing fierce criticism over employee benefits, said on Thursday it will open more than 50 in-store health clinics this year and make further changes to workers' health-care plans.

Run by third parties, the clinics are open to shoppers and employees, and are staffed by doctors who can treat non-emergency illnesses such as strep throat. Costs average between $45 and $50 per visit, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said.

Wal-Mart said many of the patients who used the clinics in an initial nine-store pilot were uninsured, and would have gone to a hospital emergency room to be treated instead.

The national average cost for a doctor's visit is about $60, while an emergency room visit averages $383, according to insurer BlueCross BlueShield. More than 40 million Americans have no insurance, and often turn to emergency rooms for care.

The world's biggest retailer said Chief Executive Officer Lee Scott will detail the health-care changes in a speech about health care to the national Governors Association Winter Meeting in Washington on Sunday.

Wal-Mart said in a statement that Scott would call for government and business to work together to solve the problem of rising health-care costs.

"The soaring cost of health care in America cannot be sustained over the long term by any business that offers health benefits to its employees," Scott's speech says, according to excerpts provided in the statement.

Wal-Mart has been severely criticized over its health-care benefits. Critics contend the plans cost too much for many of Wal-Mart's low-income employees, who turn to government aid instead. Wal-Mart is the largest U.S. private sector employer with about 1.3 million U.S. workers.

CRITICS SKEPTICAL

The retailer began offering a lower-priced insurance plan last year, and said the plan would be expanded to cover at least half of its employees by next year.

Scott will announce plans to allow part-time employees to enroll their children in the company's health-care plan -- something only full-time employees can do now -- and cut the period of time that part-time workers must wait before becoming eligible for health care. They currently must wait two years.

Some critics were skeptical of the changes.

Andrew Grossman, executive director of Wal-Mart Watch, which has been pressuring Wal-Mart to improve benefits, called the lower-cost insurance plan "a raw deal for its employees who can't afford the high deductibles and strict eligibility requirements.

"Wal-Mart Watch has long been calling upon Wal-Mart to embrace its role in helping solve this nation's health-care problems," he said in a statement.

"We hope that as Lee Scott calls for a 'new commitment from leaders in government and business', he will first acknowledge that his own corporation's woeful health benefits are a unique contributor to this nation's crisis."

Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart also plans to expand a test of health-care clinics in its stores, and will open more than 50 this year. It currently has a total of nine clinics in stores in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Florida and India.

The clinics are operated by third parties who lease space from Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart said three clinics in Arkansas treated more than 4,300 patients in the first six months.

Of those treated, nearly two-thirds were women ages 25-49, nearly half were uninsured, and almost 20 percent said they would have gone to the emergency room.

Patients can walk in without an appointment, and shop while waiting to be seen by a doctor. In some stores, a pager similar to those used at restaurants informs patients when the doctor is ready.

posted February 24, 2006 11:36 PM              

quote:

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It currently has a total of nine clinics in stores in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Florida and India.

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correction.....that should read "Indiana" =P

posted February 25, 2006 12:00 AM              

Valerie Victoria is a Professor of English as a Second Language (ESL) and a mother of two sons. They moved to India recently. A recount of her experiences in this land of diversity.

The Fancy Store and a Culture Quiz.

Like any good mother, and armed with my shopping list, I started out to find my son's school supplies. I began by asking the driver to take me to a store that sold pens, pencils and school supplies.
He said, "Madame, you'll get all those things at the bookstall."
I said, "Fine, just take me there."

We drove down some winding narrow streets near the school, and finally, he stopped at a row of shops and pointed to one that was about as big as my bathroom with a glass counter across the entire four foot entrance and said, "There Madame, you'll get the things there."

I was less than convinced, but I got out and made my way across the busy street to the bookstall. As I approached, I could see that there must be at least a million little things crammed in every corner of that shop. I could not actually get to the items; I could only point and ask. He began to pull things from areas of the little shop that I didn't think had space. He even climbed on one of the side counters and reached inside the ceiling tiles and pulled down items I asked for. Through much trial and error, we ticked-off many of the items on the list. However, he was out of geo boxes and pencils with rubbers attached, but he said I could get them at a "fancy store". There was that word again.

I asked where a "fancy store" was, and he asked where I stayed. I still wasn't ready to tackle the problem of a "fancy store" yet, but I told him I was staying near Kamanhali Main Road. He told me to just ask any person along there and they would be able to tell me. I headed back for the car, deciding to save the "fancy store" until that evening when I could walk to it and hopefully be able to actually go in.

Next, I decided I had better try to get my son's uniforms made and his shoes and socks purchased. I told the driver that I needed to go to a street called "MG" Road for a tailor and fabric for uniforms and to Brigade Road for shoes and socks.

He asked," What is the address, Madame, that you wish to find?"
"Well," I said, "She told me it is a store called the "Jean Machine", and it is in the tallest building on MG Road.
"Very Well, Madame. I know that building," He answered.
He dropped us off and said he would park across the street. No problem, I thought. We went into the building, found the "Jean Machine", told them my son's school, got him measured, and were promised the order would be ready by Thursday. We left the building, and only then did I realize what my international students meant when they said, "All Americans look alike." Across the street was parked a sea of white ambassadors with an equal number of Indian men drivers!

I quickly discovered that finding the correct car and driver was not my most immediate problem. MG Road suddenly looked liked a California freeway that had gone awry at rush hour traffic. Not to mention that there was a three-foot tall divider in the middle and a policeman near a traffic light at the other end of the busy street. Using my good American common sense, I opted to follow the law and headed for the traffic signals and the policeman. As I neared the corner, I began to observe the flow of traffic and what other pedestrians did as the lights changed. THE LIGHTS! There were some green, some arrows and one with little numbers that were going down in count. I suddenly realized that the policeman was using a microphone and amplifier, but it wasn't English that he was speaking.

I almost panicked, and then, I got an idea. I would just go when the other people went, and this would solve my problem. No such luck! My son and I were the only ones going across the street in that direction. The policeman shouted something, all the cars stopped and so we quickly hurried across the street. I still wonder to this day if he didn't shout, "Everybody stop! A crazy American lady and her little boy are trying to cross the street."

Safely on the other side, I was ready to attack my next problem of finding my car and driver. Fortunately, the driver was accustomed to foreigners, so he was standing outside of the car watching for us and waved us into the car. We proceeded on to Brigade Road and the shoe store. We went into what looked like a nice shoe store with all sizes of shoes, but they didn't carry children's shoes. "No problem," he said, as he directed us to another shoe store opposite the toy store, and so on we went. At that shoe store, they finally told me "No problem, children's school shoes are at the "Bata Shoe Store" next to Whimpy's Burgers. We proceeded on realizing that "No problem" is standard for there is a problem here. We arrived at the shoe store, tried on the black leather shoes and the white physical training shoes and asked the man how much they were. He answered and I said ok. We thought he had proceeded to the counter while we continued to look around for socks, but he nor the shoes were at the counter when we got there. We went to look for him and found him shelving the shoes in the back.

I looked at him and said, " What are you doing with the shoes?"
He looked surprised and answered, "I am putting them away, Madame."

"Why are you putting them away?" I quarried. "I wanted them!"
He apologized and took them to the counter, where we paid for them. As we left the store, my son and I looked at each other puzzled, went back over the conversation that had just happened, and we still didn't know what signaled him that we didn't want the shoes. We were so confused that we had forgotten to purchase school socks, but we decided that we had had enough shopping for one day, and I would just see if there was one near our house on my next shopping trip to look for the "fancy store." No problem!

http://stylusinc.com/business/india/culture_clash.htm

posted February 25, 2006 12:15 AM              

Global chains are pushing India to lift restrictions that prevent them from opening stores in the country. The move could lead to sweeping changes in a country where more than 95 percent of the retail trade is handled by local stores.

Leading the courtship is Wal-Mart. In May, John Menzer, head of Wal-Mart's international division traveled to India and met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. This week, Singh, who is in Washington for talks with US officials, plans to meet with Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott and possibly visit one of the company's supercenters.

Other global retailing giants, including the British chain Tesco and France's Carrefour, have also been lobbying for an end to rules that bar foreign direct investment in India's retail sector.

Chain stores account for only about 3 percent of retail sales in India. Independent stores and kiranas—family-run stalls—make up the rest.

Because of the relative lack of large supermarkets and superstores, most Indian families still shop at neighborhood stores on a daily basis—rather than the big once-a-week shopping trip that has come to dominate consumer habits in much of the West.

Opponents of lifting the restrictions, including key political parties in the fragile coalition that makes up Singh's government, argue that opening the country to global chains would undermine the Indian tradition of local self-reliance espoused by Mahatma Gandhi. They also contend that, because so many people—70 million—make a living through their own homegrown retail operations, opening the country to multinational chains would create a flood of unemployment.

Wal-Mart and other global retailers are buying more Indian-made goods and are using the potential of even greater purchases as a lure to persuade officials to lift the restrictions on foreign retail expansion.

But recent history suggests the chains' interest in Indian goods will last only as long as the country has rock-bottom labor costs. Manufacturing has become highly mobile. Over the last few years, retailers have been shifting production from Latin America to China, where labor costs are lower. US retailers bought $65 billion in goods from China last year. But now, with China expected to revalue its currency, raising the cost of exports by about 10 percent, many retailers—including Wal-Mart, Target, and the Gap—are turning to India. Wal-Mart recently established an 86-employee purchasing office in Bangalore.

"Retailers could shift the fall season to India," Norbert Ore, committee chairman of the Institute for Supply Management told Bloomberg News. "We've gotten into a virtual world where buyers can quickly move to the lower-cost country."

Wal-Mart has 1,600 stores outside of the U.S., in Argentina, Brazil, China, Germany, Mexico, South Korea and the United Kingdom.