A real-life Christmas Carol

This holiday season, while Wal-Mart continues to deny nearly half of its employees' children health care, Sam Walton's daughter Alice -- a billionaire heiress -- is going art shopping. And guess what she has her eyes on?

A $68,000,000 painting of a doctor treating a young boy.

Can you believe it? When it comes to using her considerable power to secure health care, Alice can't see past her own walls.

So let's give her something to look at. What can you put together that best expresses the health care disaster Wal-Mart refuses to address? We'll take the best stuff and make sure the humbugs at Wal-Mart hear about it. Whether it's poetry, finger-painting or sculpture, give Alice the art she isn't looking for:

http://action.walmartwatch.com/ArtForAlice

We're doing this for all the Tiny Tim's out there -- sons and daughters of janitors, associates and drivers who can't afford to see a doctor. If Alice would rather have something nice to look at than take care of sick children, let's send her some great works of art from the Wal-Mart Watch community.

And be warned: Alice has exquisite taste! The Gross Clinic, by Thomas Eakin, is widely considered one of the greatest American paintings of the nineteenth century. It's sure to be great conversation piece at her next cocktail party -- but here's the rest of the story:

A leaked memo confirmed that executives know company health insurance offerings are "expensive for low-income families, and Wal-Mart has a significant percentage of associates and their children on public assistance." It goes on to admit that, "in total, 46 percent of Associates' children are either on Medicaid or are uninsured.

You read that right. While Alice takes her cut of record-breaking profits, Wal-Mart's reliance on public health care costs the rest of us real money. In every state that has done an audit -- 24 states in total -- Wal-Mart leads the list of companies with the most employees and dependents in state-funded health care programs.

Bah, Humbug!

Tell Alice to get her priorities straight in the only way she seems to care about. Send us your own health care art, and help fill the new Walton museum with statements that truly reflect Wal-Mart's approach to health care:

http://action.walmartwatch.com/ArtForAlice

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but sometimes it can have the same ending. Right now, an out-of-touch billionaire cares more about a $68 million painting than the welfare of millions of children who's parents depend on her company.

It's time for a real-life Christmas Carol.

Happy Holidays,
Andrew Grossman
Wal-Mart Watch

Paid for by WalmartWatch.com, a campaign of Five Stones and The Center for Community and Corporate Ethics