Those greedy fucking bastards at Wal*Mart!

What a shitty series of unfortunate events for this poor lady.

Well, at least she isn't married to Michael Schiavo.

OMG YOU WENT THERE!!!

When my mom was in an accident a few months ago, I like how her insurance handled it. They told her to not worry about it, they'd take care of everything.

After the wreck, she was transported via ambulance to the ER. She was fine, but her neck was hurting pretty badly and she wanted documentation should something come of it later.

At the ER, she used her BC/BS. State Farm, her auto insurer, cut a check to BC/BS on her behalf to cover 100% of BC/BS' expenses and then sued the other driver directly (he had no insurance of his own due to numerous DUI's) to recoup their expenses (medical bills, lost time at work, cost of the rental car, the repair of the vehicle, etc.)

The nice thing about these repayment clauses is that they align the interests of the insurer and the insured. Means they'll fight for you tooth and nail to get restitution from the liable party, even if you can't afford a lawyer.

If Wal*Mart didn't do that, well, that's something to bitch about. But most likely they thought that the odds of prevailing in the suit were too low to justify the costs. And if they were the ones fighting it, they should probably be sued by their shareholders for hiring such expensive lawyers.

Doesn't sound like it was any of her insurers that led the way on the suit.

Then the question to ask is "why not?"

I simply don't get the reaction of the Wal*Mart haters.

They paid out some $400,000+ - its not like she won a suit and then they just took money from her. If insurance companies didn't recoup these kind of losses then the cost for insurance will be higher for everyone.

I worked for a smaller company where one of the employees racked up bills like this for cancer - his bills took us over whatever "limit" the insurance company had and the next year our health costs went up. Such is the nature of insurance in this country; I don't think that the problem in this instance is Wal*Mart. Instead it is the nature of the insurance industry which helps drive up costs for everyone. Wal*Mart has its hands tied just like the poor woman in this article; its likely they couldn't *not* try to recoup the costs; else risk their insurer to either raise the bill for the rest of their employees or to lose the option of providing insurance at all. Certainly they could pay out of pocket - they are a large corporation - but why should they be obligated to do so? It wasn't their fault that this accident happened - and they did pay up front (via their arrangement with their insurance company, sure) I just can't fault them for wanting to recover their losses.

Do you honestly think there's any chance whatsoever that their lawyers told them: "You might win a lawsuit, but you won't be able to keep a penny of it if you do, so there's really no point in suing. If you want to go ahead anyway, we'll take the case, but the only ones who will benefit will be us and your insurer ."

It was their lawyers' clear ethical duty to tell them at least exactly that. Really though, it was their duty to turn down the case altogether (edit: unless they negotiated an agreement with the medical insurer beforehand that would allow their clients to keep some of the proceeds of a lawsuit; what's really going on here is a demonstration of how a contingent fee can influence unethical lawyers to look after their own interests instead of their clients', because there was no money to be made negotiating with the insurer beforehand) because there was nothing they could do for their client. If you think there's any significant chance that the lawyers met their ethical duty in this case, then you're the kind of stupid that makes George Bush look like the brightest beacon of intelligence in the known universe.

And again, they have no damages themselves to sue for beyond any costs of litigation that they personally bore, which are most likely minimal--the damages are to the person who caused the accident and the medical insurance company, who've collectively had to pay more than the cost of medical care but would be about as sympathetic to a jury as a pile of shit, and a three party suit involving them and plaintiffs' lawyers would be a hideous mess to resolve and not worth their while, which is precisely why lawyers who engage in fraud engage in this kind of fraud--so a lawsuit isn't the solution here: suspension of the license to practice law is what's needed. I'd say a year or two.

I'm sure it is just an isolated incident in free market health care...

I can see where walmart deserves to be compensated as the accident wasn't their fault, yet they paid for the victim's medical care.

But shouldn't some of the money be the woman's for pain and suffering and whatnot? From what I've read here, I guess unless they negotiated up front with walmart, that walmart had the prior claim. Well within their rights. Well within ours to hate them for it.

Having paid for the services of lawyers, I find them useful. But I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one.

Really, though, when it gets down to it this isn't a story about how eeevil Wal*Mart is, its a story about what a shitty "news" source CNN is.

So we've got CBS, the NYT, and CNN--all pretty much worthless. And whatever network that was (NBC?) that ran the story about how you could use a .50 BMG rifle to shoot down a jetliner.

Wal-Mart is clearly within their legal rights to do this.

However, the amount of bad PR generated will cost them a lot more than the $400,000 it would have cost to let her keep the money.

Yes. Stealing from Walmart should be A-OK!

Did I say the word steal? Did I imply the word steal? Can you even read?

No one said a damn thing about stealing. If Wal-Mart were smart they'd just give her the money rather than avoid the bad press.

Of course, you never knew a damn thing about PR.

I think you're wrong Nick - Wal*Mart isn't going to lose much in the way of sales because of this. I mean lets face it; do you think the average Wal*Mart shopper gives a damn?

Most people who shop at Wal Mart are white trash patriotic goobers.

So if you throw some story in about how Wal-Mart took money from the brain damaged mother of a deceased soldier, I think it might have an effect.

I know quite a bit about PR. I also know about establishing bad precedent for the company and for others in the same boat. And establishing bad precedent would cost them far more than the minimal damage this bit of bad PR from going along with being ripped off would do.

It would probably be better for insurers not to cover care from accidents where there's a lawsuit involved and just stay out of the transaction entirely. Let the auto insurance providers cover everything.

Don't think the ER's would like it though... They don't give a damn about the other guy's liability insurance, they want your health coverage and/or mastercard.

Sokar disagrees: What an condescending little prick you are.
Zombie disagrees:

Prick I'm not, I just have the balls to say it.

Unlike you cocksuckers.

By the way Sokar, brush up on your grammar.

Fuck off you fat, greesy bitch.

When you say something like 'only white trash shops at Wal-Mart', you aren't saying because you're bolder than other people here, you're saying it because you're ignorant.

What about all the blacks that I see shopping at Wal-Mart? What do you think of them? They're just a bunch of dumb niggers?

I see a lot of Mexicans there too. How about them? Maybe they're a bunch of bean-eating lazy fucks?

Don't stop with the racial group you feel comfortable talking shit about. Let it all out.

Most of the "patriotic" types I know, wouldn't set foot in a Wal Mart.

Nick spits out "patriotic" as if he has nothing but contempt for the word...

'Course, if you had a socialised health care system, the insurance company wouldn't have paid out in the first place, so the plaintiffs would've pocketed all the cash.

Apart from the sick benefit the state would have clawed back... (this happened to OH after a serious accident years ago)

To be fair, though, the maximum the state could claim back was, IIRC, £68 for each week of the claim. The settlement was... rather more than that.

I like this even less, because then I really am paying for it, AND not seeing any money going back into the system to replenish what was taken to pay for it.[/quote]

Blah blah blah blah......

Meanwhile when you look at how much you pay in taxes you find the state takes more then 68 a week. It just spreads it out over your whole life through various other things.

What I love about Wordforge is how some of our members get all snobbish and on their high horses over things. Things like Walmart. Course the bastards shop in it like everyone else or they would if one was close enough to them.

Besides Nick if you want to play the white trash game all one has to do is look where you came from and live. It's certainly not the pinnacle of "whiteness" you stupid fuck.

Shit I just realized........

You know Nick is so white trash. Just look at his avatar.

If that doesn't scream, "I'm a white trash patriotic goober who chose this avatar to let all of Wordforge know what I am" then I don't my white trash.

Aww aren't you cute.

Of course, I didn't say that only white trash shops at Wal-Mart, I said that most people that shop at Wal-Mart are white trash.

As for blacks and mexicans, we don't have those in my town, so I don't see them when I go to Wal-Mart.

However, I could give half a shit about your opinion.

Oh, you caught me, I'm white trash.

Idiot.