Wal-Mart Stores, facing a raft of state legislation that would require it to increase spending on employee health insurance, will lift several of its long-standing ? and most-criticized ? restrictions on eligibility over the next year. Wal-Mart insures less than half of its 1.3 million employees in the United States and has come under growing criticism for skimping on benefits and shifting the cost of health care to state governments.
See "Wal-Mart to Loosen Health Insurance Limits", Michael Barbaro, The New York Times, February 22, 2006