TRENTON-With Wal-Mart leading the way, some of the state's largest and most profitable retailers have the largest number of employees and their family members covered by the taxpayer-funded, state-run health care program for low-income New Jerseyans.

Wal-Mart/Sam's Club, Wakefern Food Corp./Shop-Rite, Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (A&P) and Home Depot all have significant numbers of employees and their families in the FamilyCare program. Wal-Mart, New Jersey's eighth largest employer, has the most.

These are key findings from Attention Shoppers: You Pay the Health Insurance Bills for Some of New Jersey's Largest Employers. The report, by NJPP Research Director Mary E. Forsberg, provides never-before-released information on who uses FamilyCare, a program that will cost state taxpayers more than $175 million this year. The information was obtained by filing an Open Public Records Act request with the state and paying to have state computers programmed to pick up employer information from FamilyCare applicants.

"What we found raises serious public policy questions," said NJPP President Jon Shure. "If employers, including some of the largest and most profitable, are turning over to taxpayers the cost of providing health insurance to their workers and families, steps need to be taken. State programs to help low-income people aren't supposed to be subsidies for large companies so they can avoid their obligations while someone else picks up the tab for health coverage."

New Jersey needs to take more interest in who uses FamilyCare, the report says-not to push people out of the program, but to make sure employers contribute their fair share and don't shift their obligation to the taxpaying public. One way to do that would be for the state to examine FamilyCare to see whether the share of enrollees from large companies is increasing and to look at other trends. But the state does not do this, so Attention Shoppers calls on New Jersey to:

 Closely monitor FamilyCare enrollment and require information from employers about what coverage they offer and the terms.

 Compile and make public a yearly report listing the names of employers whose employees and family members are in FamilyCare; how many adults and children are in the program from each employer; the terms and insurance coverage these employers offer; and the reasons why FamilyCare participants do not participate in employer-sponsored coverage if it is offered.

 Require any employer that has more than two percent of its workforce and employees' dependents-or at least 50 participants-in FamilyCare, to pay toward the state's cost of providing health coverage.

The result of NJPP's research is similar to what has been found in others states-including in some cases by the states themselves. In at least 16 states it has been determined, for example, that Wal-Mart, which had company-record profits last year, is at or near the top in terms of the number of employees and employee family members enrolled in state-run health insurance programs.

Ironically, the sector of the economy in New Jersey where the most people are in FamilyCare is health care. More than 10,000 of the children in the program have a parent who works in that field.

FamilyCare, which was started in 1998 as KidCare, is designed to provide health coverage to people whose income is higher than what would qualify them for the federal Medicaid program but too low to be able to afford their own insurance. Depending on income and family size, coverage is ether free or at relatively low cost. Budget cuts in recent years have resulted in adults being frozen out of FamilyCare. However, Acting Gov. Richard Codey recently announced an expansion.

In Massachusetts, where this year for the first time a report along the lines of what NJPP recommends is required by law, officials found that many low-income working people said they chose not to take their employer's health plan because the cost to the employee was too high. Others said they were ineligible because of part-time status or due to a very long waiting period before new employees can be covered.

"New Jersey is falling behind other states in paying attention to this," Shure said. As the report says, "It is in the taxpayers' interest for the state to learn the extent to which growth in FamilyCare stems from employers using the program as a way out of their own obligations. Health insurance is too important-and costs too much-for New Jersey to operate in the dark. What's needed is public policy that strikes a better balance between the needs of employees and taxpayers, and the obligations of employers."

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