A Wal-Mart spokesman on Monday told The Huffington Post that only 5 percent of the discount chain’s workers were on Medicaid. The spokesman was attempting to rebut Sen. Bernie Sanders’ assertion on MSNBC that the Walton family, the Wal-Mart owners, got to be the richest family in America by paying workers so poorly that they need Medicaid and food stamps to survive. What the spokesman may have forgotten to mention was that an internal memo to  Wal-Mart’s board of directors (obtained by The New York Times) acknowledged that 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart's 1.33 million U.S. employees were uninsured or on Medicaid. The 2005 memo by M. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart's executive vice president for benefits, had more to say about how the company treats its workers:

• Wal-Mart's workers are getting sicker than the national population with preventable diseases such as obesity (p. 4). More than half of Wal-Mart's workers (p. 8) are not covered by its health insurance plans, meaning many do not have access to necessary preventative care and doctors' visits. "Our workers are getting sicker than the national population, particularly with obesity-related diseases" (p. 4).
• Wal-Mart's workers aren't using primary care because so many of them lack coverage. Instead, they opt to use taxpayer-subsidized emergency rooms. The Wal-Mart workforce "tends to over utilize emergency room and hospital services and underutilize prescriptions and doctor visits" (p. 4-5).
• In a survey, Wal-Mart workers scored the company "poorly" on the cost of healthcare coverage for employees (p. 6).
• Wal-Mart admits that its healthcare is too expensive for its employees. "Our healthcare offering is also vulnerable to attack… Specifically, our coverage is expensive for low-income families, and Wal-Mart has a significant percentage of Associates and their children on public assistance" (p. 7).
• Wal-Mart workers "spend 8 percent of their income on healthcare for themselves and their families, nearly twice the national average" (p. 7). "In 2004, 38 percent of enrolled Associates spent more than 16 percent of the average Wal-Mart income on healthcare" (p. 7). Fewer of Wal-Mart's employees are covered due to the costliness of Wal-Mart's healthcare offerings. Only 48 percent of employees are covered, compared to 68 percent for most national employers (p. 8).
• Wal-Mart admits that the number of its employees and their families on public assistance programs is "significant" (p. 8). "Five percent of our employees are on Medicaid compared to an average for national employers of 4 percent" (p. 8). "Forty-six percent of Associates' children are either on Medicaid or are uninsured" (p. 8).

Read the Wal-Mart memo

Read more in The New York Times

Watch Sanders on The Ed Show on MSNBC

Read "Bernie Sanders Calls out Walmart's 'Stavtation Wages'" in The Huffington Post