Keith Olbermann Continues Feud Against Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart Responds

Last Wednesday, Keith Olbermann introduced the story of Debbie Shank, a 52-year old former Wal-Mart employee and mother of a soldier killed in Iraq who suffered serious brain damage after getting hit by a truck and was subsequently sued by Wal-Mart to recover $470,000 in medical expenses (Shank had won a substantial settlement from the trucking company and, after legal fees, took home $417,000). Olbermann, in the clip seen below, declared Wal-Mart his "Worst Person in the World" and has subsequently named Wal-Mart to his "Worst Persons" list every night since.

Women's Wear Daily/Memo Pad's Stephanie D. Smith reports today that Wal-Mart's corporate communications director, Daphne Moore, has responded with a statement:

"This is a very sad case and we understand that people will naturally have an emotional and sympathetic reaction. While the Shank case involves a tragic situation, the reality is that the health plan is required to protect its assets so that it can pay the future claims of other associates and their family members. These plans are funded by associate premiums and company contributions. Any money recovered is returned to the health plan, not to the business. This is done out of fairness to everyone who contributes to and benefits from the plan. The Supreme Court recently declined to hear an appeal of the case, which concludes all litigation. While Wal-Mart's benefit plan was entitled to more than the amount that remained in the Shank trust, the plan only recovered the funds remaining in that trust," which according to reports amounted to about $277,000.

Comments

[aceholiday]

damn hes good

[Soulman]

Keith Olberman has now taken WalMart to the woodshed and spanked it dollar filled ass in order to concede and not take another cent from that poor woman that they have victimised. There's a new Wal-Mart that just opened in another part of my town last month. They had moved from their old spot due to some mine subsidence and expanded to A FUCKING SUPER WAL-MART. Happily I have not been there nor do I intend to

I only wish that Don Henley and the Eagles would have seen how much hypocritical Wal-mart is. Otherwise they would have not made their current CD available only there. Wal-Mart has already driven a lot of the mom and pop stores out of business. If the Eagles had realized this and still put the Cd out those places as well as Best Buy, Target and other competitors, I wouldn't have been disappointed in them as I am now. Even in Last week's Rolling Stone there is an article mentioning that Wal-Mart is threating the record industry to pull out cds if they are not lowered to $10.

Wal-Mart has become a damned 1000 pound monkey on America's backs. They need to be dealt with severely.

[Badenia]

Walmart didn't take off in Germany - the discount chain bought by WalMart about 13 years ago was closed last year - apparently, German customers didn't like the way business was conducted.

We have the power - let's make K-Mart big again!!!!!!!

[rbuck]

The issue is to what is the right think to do. First the subrogation clause in a policy gives the right to pursue subrogation put doesn't require it. This case is not typical in that laws regarding double-dipping keeps an injured party from profiting from claims for medical bills. In most cases liability coverage is able to cover the entire claim. The at fault party would reimburse the health insurance company for medical bills paid out and then the claimant would get a general settlement for pain and suffering. The issue with this is what is the settlement for. Any settlement with the 3rd party would have included pain & suffering and future incurred medical bills due to her condition. I work in auto insurance and everyday I run into situations where we waive our right to subrogation in order to bring our customer closer to being whole again. As insurance companies we make billions every year and are often carry reinsurance so that we can even right off some of our loses. I wonder if she has long term disability insurance. If not this is just the start of a long line of medical bills piling up. If she doesn't improve from her current state it will be hundred's of thousands of dollars or more in bills.

[swift goat pet for truth]

Wal-mart made $11 bil last year. If they made $1 mil every hour 24/7 all year, that would be about $9 bil.

Yeh, they better go out and rake that $277K from the brain damaged lady. They really need it.

[nualak]

This is one of many reasons I do not shop at Wal-Mart. Have you actually comparison shopped at Wal-Mart. I think you would be pleasantly surprised if you did. They are not all they are cracked up to be.

[swift goat pet for truth]

Me? Shop at Walmart. I do not recall EVER being in one of their sweatshops.

I shop at Costco. BTW, for comparison's sake, here is an article with their CEO.

http://www.smartmoney.com/mag/ceo/index.cfm?story=april2008-Costco

Some Costco's SHOCKERS:
CEO Salary: $350K, max $200K bonus.
yeah, its nice money, but nothing compared to $million salaries at Walmart.

Average pay: $18.15, which is 68% more than Walmart's average.

[strangelet]

CRGirl30 -- thank you for a voice of reason. VidalAR -- almost all corporate group insurance plans say that money recovered by the victim of an accident will reimburse the plan for payments it makes to the victim. If they didn't do that, the victim would be paid twice for their medical expenses, once by the insurance plan and once by the losing defendant. Please try to remember that the health plan was not asking for money that the victim had PRIOR to the accident; I understand from the story that the plan had already paid out $470,000 in medical expenses before the lawsuit judgment occurred.
Now, I am not a big fan of health insurance companies or the current US mechanism for providing health insurance. In fact, I think the system sucks. But the problem with Olberman's vendetta against Wal-Mart, and with most of the comments on this thread, is that you all ignore the fact that the terribly unlucky woman in this case is NOT UNIQUE. There are, every year, hundreds of people with similar stories. What's more, there are other thousands with similar stories except they didn't have medical insurance in the first place. And tens of thousands with less devastating stories, but who also have inadequate coverage. And millions who have to pay ever increasing premiums for their health coverage (for Wal-Mart employees, those premiums will go up a few cents a month because of the lack of recovery in this case).
Cont'd

[strangelet]

[I apologize for this continuation. HuffPo has apparently decided to favor soundbites over comments.

The collision and its aftermath are a terrible burden for the injured woman and her family. My impression is that their legal counsel may have failed them, either in structuring the settlement or explaining the situation. But the fact that she happened to be an employee of the highly-profitable Wal-Mart corporation should not be an issue. If she had been employed by a company that lost money last year (retailers do, you know), would that make things different?

Fond as I am of KO, in this case I think he allowed himself to get wound up in one case out of thousands, BECAUSE it involved Wal-Mart. There are certainly a number of reasons to dislike Wal-Mart as a corporation. For those of us on limited budgets, there are also reasons to appreciate Wal-Mart. But in this affair, Wal-Mart has acted no differently than any other large US corporation. The most you can honestly say is they are "as worst as anybody".

[diamndpeace]

Wow, great post, strangelet.

I think you hit the nail on the head. It was part of the terms and conditions of the insurance system that caused this horrible results.

The problem is that Walmart as a *lot* of other avenues to assist in this than just the insurance arm. I think that was the big mistake. Sure, the instance program is required to try and refund the program. I totally understand that and it makes a lot of sense if you think about it (consider less catastrophic accidents.­.. would you really want your insurance company to pay for care that's already being reimbursed by a legal claim, causing all your premiums to rise?).

So it's a PR issue really. Walmart should have been on the ball and tried to use of their other philanthropic organizations to try and reimburse the family.

With that said, everyone who is focusing on how much the company makes is missing a big point. The company is owned by shareholders. And who are the shareholders? Millions of average citizens. I know several of my retirement funds hold Walmart shares.

So really when you're saying Walmart should pay, which really means you think all the shareholders should be forced to pay. I just can't agree with that. You can't force shareholders to pay for everything *you want*.

If you care so much, give a donation to the family, afterall, that's what you're asking the shareholders to do.

[WLA]

And yet, they have a policy of keeping employees from company benefits and actually GUIDING them to receive government welfare whenever possible. They consistently bully suppliers into using unfair labor practices.

You should watch "WalMart: The High Cost of Lower Prices"

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3836296181471292925

Or "Frontline: Is Walmart Good for America?"

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/view/

But then again, you're probably one of the people that WalMart pays to do stuff like this. And maintain their Wikipedia entries. I hope it's worth it.

[Waitaminute]

You wan understand until something like this happens to you or someone you care about. We know how the insurance system works in matters like these. Thanks for letting us know how smart you are. Now try being more human. Keith only says "they could have let this one go. They makes 11 billion profit per year. No its not unigue, but it doesn't happen as often as you imply. The question i would ask, how many times does it happen with wal-mart. Stop your technical babbling and hope this doesn't happen to you.

[WLA]

Your post is not based in fact. You should research your claims, or even at least read the rest of the board here where people have done the research. I hope your lack of compassion somehow makes you feel better than the people who you perceive as sucking pennies from your paycheck.

WM's plan is a private fund and NOT a typical insurance company plan. There is nothing to suggest that it will in any way effect any kind of payment that employees make. You are a blatant apologist and are doing so without any basis in fact whatsoever.

[nanton29]

I watch Olberman's show every day before going to bed. Frankly FOX news personalities should be encouraged to watch his show as an exercise in journalism.
As we say in the west indian vernacular ' a massive big-up' to you Keith for your piece on Wal -Mart.
I am a huge fan of the Huffington Post as well.

[Justtellthetruth]

OLBERMAN ROCKS!!!

WALMART and HILLARY, bring you THEIR vision of health care reform.

Say, I wonder it that senate health care plan allows subrogation like this?

I wonder if Hillarys "forced" health care will still engage in subrogation, leaving you penniless and without recourse after a major accident that costs more than the insurance limits of the party at fault.
Will you still be forced to pay your premiums even after they have sued you for every penny of damages? Will they walmart you and repo your wheel chair?

[Waitaminute]

I am a little off topic, but Hillary''''s health plan only make it possible that even if a person lost their job or get a lower paying job the insurance companie don't lose.

At present when you have a job the employer pays part of the insurance and the employee pays part. When the employee is laid off or fired, the insurance companies get nothing. With Hillary's plan, it will be mandatory for the fired employee whether they have a job , even if its a low paying job, to buy INSURANCE. ALOT OF YOUNG PEOPLE DON'T CARRY INSURANCE. THEY WILL HAVE TO BUY INSURANCE. THE INSURANCE COMPANIES WILL CONTINUE TO MAKE OUT LIKE FAT CATS UNDER HILLARY'S PLAN.

Everyone should see sicko if you haven't, what are you afraid of.

[jules135]

Congratulations on forcing Wal-Mart to give back the money! Power of the press...

[rbuck]

So here is some info about the claims process. If the attorney represented the lady most attorneys automatically get around 33% of the settlement. If the attorney actually takes the case to court the attorney can gets 40%-45% of the settlement.

If she got hit by a semi its likely that they carrier $MIL in liability coverage. When the case is heard in the courts the settlement would be inclusive of everything (medical bills, lost wages, pain & suffering).

The problem in this case is that the coverage from the other party wasn't able to fully compensate this lady for the terrible condition that she is in. Likely what happened is that the attorney verified what the limits of the other party was and requested that the ins comp tender their limits. I see this all the time in my job. Attorneys say they represent the little people but they want to make their money quick and easily and prefer not to take cases to court and try to recoup money from the actual parties that were at fault (versus ins companies).

If Wal-Mart was a responsible company (HAH) they could have taken the stance that her settlement compensated "ever so slightly" for her pain and suffering and not try to subrogate for bills they paid. Instead as a self-insured company they decided that a $400k write off isn't acceptable when they are raking in billions of dollar every year.

I Hate Wal-Mart!

[Justtellthetruth]

The REAL crime here, that is inherent in ALL subrogation cases like this, is that the health insurance company chooses not to try to take on the other "at fault" party's insurance company to recover their payments. They allow the poor injured party to take on that battle,and absorb all legal fees, and then attack the weakest player once they have been paid for pain and suffering and future medical expenses. And the lawyers double dip while the Health insurers pay little or nothing by victimizing people who are in the midst of crisis.

If the insurance company does not initiate legal proceedings themselves, and pay their fair share of the legal fees, WHY SHOULD THEY GET SOME OF OR ALL OF THE MONEY THAT IS PAID IN DAMAGES. That idea is fundamentally flawed and unfair.

They save a lot of time and legal fees fighting individuals rather than corperations.

SCUM!!!!

[strangelet]

A very astute comment. Subrogation itself is not necessarily evil, but the injured party should not be liable for the portion of the settlement that goes to legal fees. (Are they?)

Regarding future medical expenses: if the insurance company is obligated to cover such expenses, it doesn't seem wholly unreasonable that they should recover that part of the award. I guess, as an alternative, the injured party should be allowed to terminate insurance coverage and retain the future medical expenses award.

Regarding pain and suffering: this should stay with the victim, but I strongly feel that such awards should only be made in the event of substantial negligence or malice on the part of the injuring party. I.e., they should be rare.

Ultimately, the problem is that the whole concept of for-profit medical insurance is stupid. Since we have it, though, the critical point is that insured injured parties should emerge from the tumult no worse off (financially) than they were before the injuring event. If they come out ahead (financially), that's okay, but it should be unthinkable that they lose money as well as health.

[ItsAlessandro]

This situation needs a more in depth analysis. What has been left out, in my opinion, is that these two payments did not need to overlap. The long term coverage for this women will actually reach the millions of dollars, so Walmart could have let this slide by simply realizing that the additional judgement was going to go for additional expenses, not the expenses that Walmart already covered.

Walmart has a history of getting its employees to file for stated funded medical coverage even when the employee could have gotten the coverage via Walmart. Heaven forbid the chips ever fall the other way.

Once again our "Supreme Court" reveals itself to be nothing more than rich, educated elite who have minimal desire to question the ethics of any situation that may adversely affect huge corporate methodology and profit making.

[whatsmyname]

Keith, excellent, and that barely describes your work I just wish you had time to teach the following fakes out there: Lou Dobbs (U can C right thru him) Wolf Blitzer (he takes his assignments from a pimple faced relative of network) well really most of 'em out there now. I gotta tell ya Keith, I was your biggest critic up until some months ago and I retired after three decades in this biz. You, Sir.......­. are the mannnnnnnn­nnnnnnnnnn­nnnnnnnnnn­nnnnnnnnnn­nnnnnnnnnn­nnnnnnnnnn­nnnnnnn! - 30 -

[huffhuffpass]

Together we are ONE! Just an example of how strong the PEOPLE (US) can be if we stick together. Why can't we do the same in the political field and change the way D.C. works?

YES WE CAN

[AjicNYC]

Keith IS THE WORST PERSON , His conscience forced him to do a special comment thing on hillary , Pah Leeze , who does he think he is a middle aged man who is with a 24 year old girl , oh wait he is. My bad nothing to see here folks . keep going about your business

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10092006/gossip/pagesix/pagesix.htm

Haha!!

[boombox]

hmmm, he's got a young girl friend, so...how could he possibly be telling the truth???

right!

oh, and "nothing to see here folks" is the new catch phrase among the open-mouthed breathing set!

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

Jealous and bitter much?

[YellowPanties]

Ha ha ha!

You are ridiculous!

[Waitaminute]

Are you still not eating french fries?

[GenXer]

Victory! They understand the power of money (yours and minds).

[ENK727]

Way to go Keith... glad to hear Walmart reversed their decision on this.

[newshawk14]

I do like Keith Olbermann, and would certainly like to commend him on getting Wal-Mart to do
what is right, rather than what might be legal. I also love John Stewart, and I actually like Lou
Dobbs, who is also looking out for the little guy, even if he occasionally perceived as being
Xenophobic.

[Mort]

While you all gloat over this "victory," keep in mind that the lady's complete financial resources were wiped out in the process. The money she rightfully deserved should have gone a long way toward her care in the nursing center. Now it's being paid by you and I. She not only lost her money, she lost her marriage, her son, her health, her freedom, basically her whole life, and the heartless weasels took everything she had.

I applaud Keith for doing what he did, but this is not a win. A win would have been for Wally World to give back all the money plus pay her another mil in aggrivation tax, a public apology and require all their upper management to attend sensitivity training.

[Star2000dancer]

Exactly!!! I lost everything in a similar experience with TOPS & big lawyers Cellino & Barnes in WNY. Then had to go on welfare after I lost everything. TOPS refused to pay for any care I had , so I lost all those doctors & still owe them. Then you have to apply for disability, wait. get a lawyer & fight for it now days. So you go on medicare and become an experimental animal. They treat you like dirt, & give you as many drugs as possible. Most famous diagnosis: There's nothing wrong with you, here take these drugs. Keith HELP!!!!!!! This is the reality of our "systems".

[WLA]

Mort, you are correct. It is Wal Mart policy to, whenever possible, keep employees at under the amount of hours where they are eligible for benefits. They also ACTIVELY encourage employees to seek government whenever possible. They provide forms and even assistance seeking government aid, so that they can keep their wages down. Those that would defend them here, are not seeing the big picture. They ACTIVELY ENCOURAGE employees to seek as much welfare as possible!

Aside from their proposed solar initiative, Wal Mart is the single most glaring example of corporatism run amok.

You are correct. This is but a very small move that they have made to save face. There is nothing that they can ever do that will get me to ever give them one red cent and I encourage those with a sense of decency and moral integrity to do the same.

Where I live, it's pretty easy to avoid WM entirely. I couldn't even tell you where a wal mart is. There are some Sam's clubs, but there are options to those just down the street as well. I know some rural areas have only Wal Mart as an option, but that is precisely why they must be driven to be responsible. Just like they have driven all of the other options away from the consumer. Just like they have helped to drive manufacturing offshore.

Voting with your dollar is critical to regaining corporate responsibility.

[YellowPanties]

"you and me," not "you and I."

[WLA]

That is a fragment, not a sentence. That fact notwithstanding, you probably should have started it with a capital letter.