According to CBS News, the latest tack in the war on Wal-Mart is that the low-cost retailer forces its workers to “rely on public support to make ends meet.” A UC-Berkeley *kaff, kaff* study finds that because of its “low wages and because [Wal-Mart employees] do not have health insurance,” the evil corporate menace not only chews up and discards Ma and Pa Bigpricelowselection, it also “takes more from communities than it gives.”

Obviously the success of the tobacco settlement has shown the American left that using “societal health care” costs is the new way to wage war on industry. It’s classic socialist problem-solving. Pass a law involving government meddling that creates a problem, then shriek about how the existence of the problem proves the need for more government meddling. It they had a hammer, they’d bash you on the head, and if you complained of a headache, they’d tell you the cure for headaches is to whomp you on the back with a 2′ x 4′. Berkeley studies show it’ll make you forget all about your headache.

Excessive government meddling is what has ramped up health care costs in the first place. Here, first the nanny-state leftists involved the government in guaranteeing health care for certain segments of society, then they increased the parameters of those segments so that greater numbers of people “qualified” for government-provided health care, and now they are going after (successful) employers who pay low wages (and don’t kowtow to unions, bankroll socialist politicians or otherwise agree to their protectionist racket) for making it so their employees “are forced to” rely on government health care. The audacity is breath-taking and quite frightening.