Those greedy fucking bastards at Wal*Mart!

Fuck Wal*Mart!

In the ass! With a big rubber dick!



The have no

That is just sickening.

Okay.

Let's point out one thing: the couple losing their son in Iraq has NO BEARING WHATSOEVER on the legitimacy of Wal*Mart's actions, and, indeed, happened years after the fact. It's an emotional appeal which is only included in the article to make the couple's plight read more tragically.

Now, I'll ask some questions:

1. Did Wal*Mart not expend a tremendous amount of money on this woman's health problem before it was even aware of a settlement between the couple and the trucking firm?

2. Did the woman not have a contract with Wal*Mart whose stipulations were that Wal*Mart could recover health care costs from settlements?

3. Did the couple not fail in their legal attempts to prevent Wal*Mart from getting the money from the settlement? Did not a court endorse this option for Wal*Mart?

Oh, I am not arguing Wal-Mart has a right to do this....I am sure they do.

I just think it is sickening and the bad PR is worth far more than this money they are taking from a brain damaged handicapped woman.

I mean seriously...are there many worse PR moves than this?

The only reason it's bad PR is because it's Walmart doing it.

^
That was the first thing to come to my mind . . . One of these things is not like the others . . .

If she keeps forgetting about the kid, why don't they just tell her that he won $50 million in the lottery? That's great news. Instead they make her wallow in sadness over and over again.

Who are the sick fucks, here?

Isn't this standard fare for most companies' insurance offerings?

WTF?!? Legal fees were $583,000??? They should have sued for $2 million then. Or at least $1 million and legal fees.

I dunno...I would see it as a bad PR move regardless of the company.

Yup.
Most insurance companies have no problem covering you if there's a lawsuit going on, but if you win, they expect that money back.
It's the idiot at fault who's responsible for covering your expenses in an accident, not theirs.(assuming the court finds for the plaintiff)

And when he doesn't come visit her?

Lies have a way of being exposed.

"Grandma, he visited you yesterday. He'll be here tomorrow!"

What is the point of medical insurance if you pay in the premiums and then have an accident and then they pay for medical bills but then get it all back? I say it again that the judicial branch should have to answer to the people like the other two branches do. We should at least have the right of petition to remove them from office or something. I see no difference between them and the kings of old.

I'm guessing the reason the writer put in the bit about her son was because the facts were against her. I feel bad for her but there's no way she'd win that case.

Wal*Mart paid beyond the limits of the insurance policy's coverage. Why shouldn't they get it back?

Or, to put it another way...

If Wal*Mart shouldn't be able to recover this money, why should they spend it in the first place? If you're Wal*Mart's employee and are in a horrible accident and require tremendous medical attention, why would Wal*Mart shell out anything if they run the risk of getting stuck with the bill later?

You miss my point entirely.

Perhaps what Wal*Mart is doing is legal, but they lose in the court of public opinion.

Wal*Mart's bad behavior could be corrected, but it won't 'cause people like buying cheap shit made in China.

Remember kids, your employer has their best interests at heart, not yours.

You asked what was the point of her having insurance?

This woman's family did not have to pay the health care costs, which would have been beyond ruinous for any middle income family. Wal*Mart didn't pay for the medical bills; they'd payed for the bill BEYOND what the insurance company paid.

Let's face it: the only reason this is news is because it's Wal*Mart. This shit happens every single day with Aetna, UHC, BC/BS... even Medicare does this, IIRC. But you don't see heartstring-tugging stories about them all the time. No, you only see it here because Wal*Mart's an easy target.

With everybody saying how evil Wal-Mart is, I say it's time they start to crush people's lives and destroy the ways of life of the people who have the audacity to hope for a better life under the radar of its reach.

Go get em, Wal-Mart. Fuck em up good.

Pfeh! They've already done that.

Yeah, but I mean they should start buying Chinese tanks and rolling through small-town mom and pop stores and impressing their staff to work in Wal-Mart Supercenters. Set up strip joints next to elementary schools. Have booths to cash unemployment checks next to the blue and white felted blackjack tables. Gun down teachers who may educate their students to become more than cart pushers.

I'm talking Bifftown shit here.

That's the only way they can be changed / punished. Hit'em where it hurts. Obviously they have no souls, but they're probably extra sensitive in the cash drawer.

So instead what people will do in increasing numbers given stupidness like this is not get insurance, foot the taxpayer with the bill via public hospitals and rightfully keep the settlements for themselves. Walmart was not injured in that accident, only the lady was. Walmart paid out care because she had insurance, not out of the kindness of their heart. They should have no right to a trust set up specifically to care for this woman for the rest of her life.

This is standard of practice on health insurance. Which doesn't mean that it isn't ridiculous. Basically the net result is that the only reason for an insured person to sue for medical costs is in order to generate lawyers fees, especially when you consider how many jurisdictions severely limit "pain and suffering" recovery these days. To be honest, I have no idea why medical insurance policies aren't written to say that the medical insurance company will take 50% of any lawsuit recovery in cases like these. The insurance companies would get back much more money in the long run because customers who were negligently injured would sue a lot more frequently.

The really unusual thing here is that the lawsuit ever happened, and it's unfortunate that that's unusual, because people who negligently injure other people should be held accountable. As it is, after accidents like this insured people almost never sue even when a potential defendant's fault is clear, and uninsured people always sue, regardless of fault, because they have no other hope for paying their bills. That's just a monumentally dumb way to have insurance and the legal system deal with accidents, but it's what we've got.

Yes, but the money the woman got was not for medical bills in the court settlement. This is were I totally fault the court, they could have stopped this.

Wal*Mart was not a party to the accident and had no obligation to pay medical expenses beyond what its insurance provided. Get that? WAL*MART DIDN'T HAVE TO PAY. They paid because it was likely that they could recover some of that money at a later time.

If you were a court and stopped this arrangement--which is in the woman's contract with Wal*Mart--then that would be very well and good for this person...but how about the next? If Wal*Mart can't recover money from settlements, how likely do you suppose it will be to spend that money? Not very.

Bad strategy. Most people who elect not to have health insurance and wind up in the hospital will not be there because of someone else's negligence, so there will be no settlement to collect.

True, but if there had been no settlement, Wal*Mart would've been out that money.

Unless the woman has signed a contract which allows her employer to recover their costs for her health care.