the intent appears to be to communicate with fellow employees. And Walmart's official policy is viewed as acceptable and not overly restrictive in this regard, revised in part after consultations with the NLRB. However, in practice, Walmart may not always follow such a policy. For example, a September 2013 article in The Atlantic Wire, reports the case of a 17-year veteran of Walmart's Paramount, California location who started at $5.50 an hour as an overnight stocker and became a manager in housewares. "For 14 years I was a model associate", he states. In 2012, he became increasingly involved with OUR Walmart and was fired in May 2013. He reports that after he began speaking about labor conditions "they started silencing me, by holding me to standards that they weren't holding other associates to. We were so understaffed, and the workload placed on me [was] unsurmountable." Health insurance According to a September 2002 survey by the state of Georgia, one in four children of Walmart employees were enrolled in PeachCare for Kids, the state's health-insurance program for uninsured children, compared to the state's second-biggest employer, Publix, which had one child in the program for every 22 children of employees. A December 2004 nationwide survey commissioned by Walmart showed that the use of public-assistance health-care programs by children of Walmart workers was at a similar rate to other retailers' employees, and at rates similar to the United States population as a whole. As of October 2005, Walmart's health insurance covered 44% or approximately 572,000 of its 1.3 million United States workers. In comparison, Walmart rival and wholesaler Costco insures approximately 85% of its workers. In 2003 Walmart spent an average of $3,500 per employee for health care, 27% less than the retail-industry average of $4,800. When asked why so many Walmart workers choose to enroll in state health care plans instead of Walmart's own plan, Walmart CEO Lee Scott acknowledged that some states' benefits may be more generous than Walmart's own plan: "In some of our states, the public program may actually be a better value – with relatively high income limits to qualify, and low premiums." Critics of Walmart say in Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price that employees are paid so little they cannot afford health insurance. On October 26, 2005, a Walmart internal memo sent to the firm's board of directors advised trimming over $1 billion in health