In the midst of an article on Wal-Mart’s new low-premium/high-deductible health care plan, the New York Times makes the sort of bizarre statement that could only be made by a news organization whose employees have never set foot in a Wal-Mart:

Currently, fewer than half of Wal-Mart’s workers are covered by company health insurance, compared with more than 80 percent at Costco, its leading competitor.

Costco is Wal-Mart’s leading competitor? Perhaps in the warehouse club space, but that’s small potatoes compared to Wal-Mart’s discount store/grocery business, where its main competitors are K-Mart, Target, Meijer, Kroger, and the like. I strongly suspect those competitors are much less generous with health care than Costco (and perhaps even less generous than Wal-Mart).

Fact checking, it’s a beautiful thing.