It Takes a B-52 Maryland Democrats Pick Up Hillary's Cudgel

Readers with long memories will recall that one of the reasons HillaryCare was defeated in 1994 was because of its unpopular employer mandate. Well, its diktat that all businesses provide health insurance is making a comeback, albeit at the state level and at first only for the largest companies. But all employers are on Big Labor's target list here. That's the larger meaning of last week's events in Maryland, where the state legislature overturned the veto of GOP Governor Robert Ehrlich and passed a bill forcing any employer in the state with more than 10,000 employees to spend at least 8% of its payroll on health care or pay the state the difference. There are only a handful of companies that large in Maryland -- Johns Hopkins University and Giant Food, a grocery chain competing with Wal-Mart, among them. Only one meets all the criteria, however, so the legislation was dubbed "The Wal-Mart Bill," which in part it is. But no one should think this will be an isolated political event. The state AFL-CIO threw everything it had into the bill ... [continued]