Sen. Kerry's remarks today on Wal-Mart and health care.

"Companies like Wal-Mart have adopted a totally different strategy-use workers until they get sick, don’t cover them for check-ups, and then tell them they’re on their own. The nice person who greets you at Wal-Mart’s door is shown the door when illness strikes. Whether it’s because Wal-Mart hires part-time workers and doesn’t offer them insurance, or offers health care packages most workers there can’t possibly afford, passing along enormous costs to families and taxpayers, the bottom line is clear: at Wal-Mart, less than forty percent of the employees have health insurance. That’s 600,000 working Americans on their own. It’s unconscionable and it is unacceptable that five of the ten richest people in America are Wal-Mart stockholders from the same family-worth double-digit billions each--but they can’t find the money to secure health coverage for their own workers and their families.

Wal-Mart workers aren’t alone. Millions of Americans with full-time jobs end up without health insurance. No family should be left with their fingers crossed, hoping to dodge a bullet, afraid that bad news from their doctor will leave them bankrupt or without care.

America believes in real family values and lives them; this Administration just talks about family values but does little to actually value families. Think about it: 46 million Americans uninsured including eleven million children, six million more than when this president took office. Those six million are casualties of indifference and incompetence every bit as much as the hundreds of people who are losing their lives in Iraq every week. And to demand change we must resolve to take both of these moral issues to the ballot box this fall."