In the world of Walmart news, yesterday’s big headline was “Walmart=America!!!” The strange and slightly sad (c’mon, we can do better than that!) headline comes from a new Vanity Fair/60 Minutes poll. The poll is the first in what will be a monthly series and this one included two questions about Walmart amid its rather scattered and odd selection of questions.

The first Walmart questions was “The American banking and auto industries have just suffered through one of their worst years ever. Given that, which of the following BEST SYMBOLIZES AMERICA TODAY?” The possible answers were Walmart, Google, Microsoft, the NFL, Goldman Sachs, or none of the above. We’re not quite sure why the poll chose to have this question set up as a multiple choice, or how they decided which companies to include as possible answers. It seems odd that this wouldn’t have been an open ended question given the nearly endless possibilities for answers. Walmart undoubtedly would have done well in an open ended format, given its size and scope, but one can imagine companies not on this list doing well. Facebook, for instance, might have made a showing, AIG may have been mentioned, or Ford.

The second question concerning Walmart was, “Wal-Mart has said that it is considering the addition of swine-flu, or H1N1-flu, vaccination stations to some of its 4,000 mega-stores across the country. IF WAL-MART OFFERED HEALTH-CARE SERVICES—such as flu shots, dental, eye, or basic check-ups—would you consider becoming a Wal-Mart patient?” Here the answer was more straight forward, and the results more interesting. In total, 33% of those responding said they would not consider using Walmart’s medical services and 31% said they didn’t know, leaving just 25% saying they would use Walmart for medical services. When you look at the break down of numbers, they get even more interesting. only 20% of men said they’d go to Walmart for flu shots and the like, while women were split rather evenly on the questions with 29% saying no, 30% saying yes, and 28% saying they didn’t know. Age was a factor too. While 33% of 18-29 year olds would go to Walmart for a check up, only 15% of those over the age of 65 said they would while 41% said they wouldn’t even consider it.

These numbers are important for a few reasons. First, Walmart has been on a major PR offensive when it comes to health care. They are attempting to draw attention away from their own inadequate health care coverage. Walmart is also attempting to launch in store health clinics on a large scale (as the questions suggests) but have been rather unsuccessful. The numbers from these polls suggests that a retail health clinic associated with Walmart probably won’t do very well.

Perhaps the most interesting question these numbers bring up is why people seem so unwilling to trust their health to Walmart. Is it a perceived lack of trust or quality? Is it some kind of cultural bias? What do you think? Why do you think people are hesitant when it comes to Walmart and health care?