You don’t get to be the world’s largest retailer without having some chops.

Evidently reading the Obamaic tea leaves during the 2008 campaign, WalMart set in motion a plan to market Electronic Health Record (EHR) computer systems to physicians, and in so doing has come up with a system that shaves 50 percent off the price of its competitors.

Using its Sam’s Club operation, the Arkansas giant will pair Dell computers with software from eClinicalWorks and will throw into the mix installation, maintenance and training.

Cost will be $25,000 for the first physician in an office and $10,000 for each additional. Yearly upkeep fees will run $4,000 to $6,500.

Recall for a moment how the recent stimulus package (also called “porkulus” by many commentators) included $19 billion in subsidies for EHRs, and you’ll see how savvy WalMart was in preparing for an upcoming opportunity.

With McDonald’s, WalMart has also been about the only bright spot on the economic front since the Great Crash of September 2008 when Timothy Geithner and Hank Paulsen let Lehman Brothers go under (while paying the bonuses for AIG, Merrill Lynch and scads of other institutions they did decide to save), so you have to give the much-maligned (by Obama’s very own supporters) company some credit.

“If Wal-Mart is successful, this could be a game-changer,” observed Dr. David J. Brailer, former national coordinator for health information technology in the Bush administration.

Like I said at the top, you don’t get to be Top Dawg without having some chops–and using them to eat up your competition.