The Right Way, and the Wal-Mart Way

If you haven't seen this story yet you've been hiding under a rock. I doubt that I even have to comment on it -- if you spend any time here at all, you know my reaction to this kind of thing. (And please note that it's not only Wal-Mart, but Wal-Mart's insurance company -- two bastards for the price of one.)

If you want the full measure of the horror here, read the WSJ article.

"We wanted her to have a decent quality of life, and we still had the money," he says. He hoped he could also use it to pay the roughly $130,000 in bills for Mrs. Shank's rehabilitation and a return hospital visit after her coverage expired.

But in August 2005, Wal-Mart re-emerged with a lawsuit against the Shanks demanding repayment for $469,216 in medical costs out of their settlement. It charged that the Shanks had violated the terms of the health plan by not reimbursing it. The company also demanded payment of legal fees and interest for the cost of suing the Shanks for the money.

Mr. Graham, the Shanks' attorney, says he approached Wal-Mart's attorneys about negotiating a compromise, but was told the health plan wanted to proceed with the lawsuit. "We're not contending that Wal-Mart isn't entitled to a payment. We're saying they're entitled to one based on equity," he says. Since Mrs. Shank wasn't fully compensated for her damages in the first place, he argues, Wal-Mart should also expect only partial reimbursement.

Wal-Mart got the whole thing, another benefit of the Republicans' success at packing the courts.

This is choice:

Administrators of employer-financed health plans "have an obligation to participants to be impartial," the Wal-Mart spokeswoman says. "Virtually all health plans include subrogation provisions as a way to control health plan costs."

That's the excuse they use to cancel coverage when someone actually needs it.

I like John Cole's comment:

I am actually on some e-mail list, probably a remnant from the Red State days, where some Wal-Mart flack sends me spam telling me all the good Wal-Mart does. They probably wouldn’t need to spend so much time and money on PR if they would stop being such total assholes in cases like this. But then again, money is involved. And if there is a choice between making a buck and doing the right thing, we know where Wal-Mart is gonna end up on that side of the equation.

The insurance business is the second biggest legal scam in the country, after military contracts. And Wal-Mart has never been known for its "people first" philosophy. Just keep repeating the Reagan mantra: "Greed is good, greed is good, greed is good. . . ."