Group previews Wal-Mart health-care debate

It was just a disagreement between friends, even though it was over the biggest retailer in the world.

Two lobbyists and neighbors faced off in Eastport yesterday in a preview of a debate that will culminate in a vote in the General Assembly next month: Whether big corporations should be required to provide a certain level of health care benefits for their employees.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. vetoed a bill earlier this year that would require companies with at least 10,000 employees to devote at least 8 percent of their payroll to health benefits. Wal-Mart is the only company in the state that big that doesn't meet the...