When he was promoted, Casias — a 29-year-old husband and father of two children, ages 8 and 7

When he was promoted, Casias — a 29-year-old husband and father of two children, ages 8 and 7 — was

finally able to enroll in the Wal-Mart health plan. Up until then, he was one of the country’s 40-plus

million uninsured. He told me every 6-month check-up is about $5,000 out-of-pocket. As a result, he is

swimming in thousands of unpaid medical bills, and plagued by collection agencies. Getting health

insurance was a big step forward for this man and his family. Losing a job in Michigan, which has the

highest unemployment in the country, is a tremendous punch in the gut. “I gave them everything I got,

” Casias told me.

And Wal-Mart took it — and now more. Conveniently for his employers, he won’t have to pay for his

cancer treatment, because he fired him right after he enrolled in the health care plan. To all you

people out there who say private industry can solve our health care crisis, I have a GM sedan to sell

you. Wal-Mart even wanted to block this guy’s unemployment benefits!

I interviewed Casias as part of an upcoming piece (check back on Tuesday) on the local and state

roadblocks facing the medical marijuana movement, but I was so mad when I got off the phone I had to

write it out immediately. This is a man who doesn’t know how long he has to live, having to face his

young children, fired from a job he worked so diligently and loyally at, for something he was told by

the State of Michigan was legal. The fact that a Godzilla company like Wal-Mart, which shamelessly

professes “family values” and offers this phony-baloney glossy-photo understanding for families

struggling through the financial crisis, can arbitrarily fire a model employee, ignore state law (which

was adopted by a referendum of the people!) and rip away his long-awaited enrollment into a legitimate

health care plan — is nothing short of an abomination.