Wal-Mart extends Healthcare Benefits to more Employees

Under growing pressure in many states to improve health-care benefits, Wal-Mart Stores said Thursday it will expand coverage for its employees and build more than 50 in-store health clinics.

Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott said Thursday that employers cannot continue to meet the rising costs of health care and urged a government-business partnership to find an answer.

The announcement marks the second time in six months that the world's largest retailer has moved to improve health benefits and comes ahead of Scott's speech Sunday about the issue to the nation's governors, who are looking for ways to cap rising costs for taxpayer-funded health plans that cover the uninsured. Details of the new health-benefit plans are expected to be unveiled in the coming months.

The world's largest retailer will allow more workers to become eligible for the lowest cost health plan, cut the waiting period for part timers, and allow their children to be covered. Wal-Mart will more than quadruple the number of clinics this year after opening nine in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Florida, and Indiana last year.

The company would extend its Value Plan, which offers health insurance for $11 per month, to half of its employees by next year.