Wal-Mart, the nation?s largest private employer, said on Tuesday that for the first time in its 46-year history more than half its United States workers had enrolled in the company?s health insurance plan, a milestone for a retailer long criticized as offering unaffordable benefits. The discount retailer said that after it introduced a revised health plan last fall, the number of workers who signed up reached 690,970, or 50.2 percent of its nearly 1.4 million employees. The higher enrollment ? which has risen from 45.5 percent of Wal-Mart?s employees five years ago ? is expected to help blunt criticism from unions and political groups that have rebuked the company for insuring fewer than half of its workers.
See "Wal-Mart Says More Than Half Its Workers Have Its Health Insurance", Michael Barbaro, The New York Times, January 22, 2008