America WORLD’S RICHEST WOMAN:


Healthcare Will Bankrupt America


Walmart


heiress funds medical school to


revolutionize system that failed her.


shorter than the other, lingering pain, a spate of physical and emotional trau- mas, and an intimate knowledge of what the nation’s medical system does well, and badly. “I know the healthcare system way


too well,” she told a reporter for the online site Semafor. “Healthcare is going to break and bankrupt Ameri- can companies, and America itself, if we don’t change it.” While healthcare and education


have been the largest beneficiaries of American philanthropy for decades, Walton wants to do far more than simply give money to improve the per- formance of the nation’s doctors, hos- pitals, and medical institutions. Her goal is to revolutionize health-


care. Even she admits that she does not


know whether such comprehensive change is possible. “Throw spaghetti at the wall; see


what sticks,” she has said. “It’s OK if none of it sticks.” But it would be a mistake to under-


estimate Walton’s ability or determi- nation. In July, she took a major step


A BY JUDITH MILLER


lice louise walton knows firsthand about the failings of America’s healthcare system.


In 1983, while vacationing with


her family in Mexico, the daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton lost control of her rented Jeep on a sharp


28 NEWSMAX | JANUARY 2026


curve and plunged into a ravine. Her left leg shattered, her right


badly broken, she was airlifted to a hospital in her native Arkansas after Mexican doctors recommended amputating her leg. Twelve years and 30 surgeries later,


she recovered. But the accident left the world’s richest woman with one leg


toward what some have called her impossible dream with the opening of the Alice Walton School of Medi- cine, or AWSOM, a vast new build- ing located on the grounds of anoth- er of her major achievements — the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which opened in 2011 in Ben- tonville, Arkansas, where Walmart is headquartered. Her goal of raising the profile of American art and enabling Americans in rural areas to see great art also had its initial share of critics. But today, Crystal Bridges, with over 3,000 pieces of art, is regarded as one of the nation’s finest collections of American art. And true to her word, admission is


free. The museum now attracts over 750,000 visitors a year. On July 14, her medical school wel-


comed its inaugural class of 48 medi- cal students (of 2,000 applicants) for their first year.


WALTON/STEPHEN IRONSIDE


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