Wal-Mart continues to improve health insurance coverage for employees. The company has enrolled an additional 100,000 workers in health plans. For the last few years, Wal-Mart has been heavily criticized for not offering affordable health insurance to employees. While they still provide health insurance to less than half of their employees, they have been improving rapidly.

During 2008, Wal-Mart is offering employees a selection of health plans as well as 2,400 generic medications for $4. Enrolled employees can call a medical hotline staffed by nurses from the Mayo Clinic 24 hours a day. Employees can participate in a wellness program that promotes exercise and lifestyle changes like smoking cessation.

At least some of this improvement in Wal-Mart employee benefits can be credited to the power public opinion which turned negative on Wal-Mart a couple of years ago when their stinginess to workers became public.