[SORRY! That other "test version" shouldn't have gone out. This has the FULL TEXT that was truncated in the other one.] What a godawful story -- like something straight out of Charles Dickens... as retold by Franz Kafka. How did Michael Moore miss *this* one?? (Actually, Sicko was already completed by the time this first hit the news in a big way last year.) Last week the story was picked up by CNN (see below) & Keith Olbermeyer on MSNBC, among others. No surprise that WalmartWatch has been running a major campaign around this case (see below for more). ++++++++++++ For my money, the best piece I've seen was this column, published in the possibly legendary Niagara Falls Reporter. A word of warning though: Be sure you're in a safe place with no hot beverages when you're reading this. Seriously -- if you don't bounce off the ceiling (or collapse on the floor, as the case may be) you may not have a pulse. ____________________ April 1 2008 BOYCOTTING WAL-MART By Mike Hudson I've long detested Wal-Mart. More than any other institution, they've led this country into a dependency on cheap Chinese-made goods that has killed much of what was left of the American manufacturing sector in the wake of NAFTA, and yet the corporation wraps itself in the flag at every opportunity. Records and books critical of George W. Bush or the war in Iraq have routinely been banned from Wal-Mart shelves. Meanwhile, the company has employed hordes of illegal immigrants who will work for wages even lower than those paid to the displaced American workers that man its stores. When a Wal-Mart store opens, it sucks the life out of the nearby commercial districts, and what were once hardware stores, ladies' dress shops, bookstores and pharmacies become instead vacant buildings, driving down property values and placing a burden on the taxpayers. The stores are further subsidized by the government through food stamps and other assistance its employees often receive because they don't earn enough working 40 hours a week to support themselves and their families. Attempts by workers to unionize have been put down in barbaric fashion. Still, if you're an American living in the first decade of the 21st century, you've found it almost impossible to stay away from Wal-Mart completely. I've been in two of their stores myself, one in rural Tennessee and one in rural Pennsylvania. In both cases I suddenly found myself without something I needed, and going anywhere else would have involved considerable time and trouble. No more. I will never again set foot in one of their miserable establishments, and God strike me dead if I do. Deborah Shank is a 52-year old mother of three and a former Wal-Mart employee. Eight years ago, she was involved in a car accident that has left her permanently brain damaged, confined to a wheelchair and living in a nursing home. She had signed up for the Wal-Mart health care plan, which is slightly better than having no health insurance at all and which the company was dragged kicking and screaming into providing many years after the retail giant became this country's largest employer. The workers themselves pay by far the largest share of the money that goes into the plan, and their choices of doctors, hospitals and prescription medications are severely limited. Still, the $470,000 in medical bills Shank incurred were covered under the plan. Later, since she wasn't at fault in the accident, there was a lawsuit, and she was awarded $417,000 that her family used to set up a trust fund to provide for her care in the nursing home. Neither Shank nor her family nor her attorney was aware of the fine print contained in the vaunted Wal-Mart health care plan that said that any court award granted to the victims of catastrophic accidents had to be turned over to the company, which is worth $200 BILLION, so it could cover the expenses it incurred in paying the hospital bills. Like so many other things Wal-Mart does, the "health insurance" offered to its employees is basically a scam. It's only good if you don't have occasion to need it. Do you think that, if an employee never has cause to use it, they give them their money back? So Wal-Mart sent an army of lawyers down to Jackson, Mo., to take Shank's money away from her. The award had not been for the cost of her medical expenses, which of course everyone thought had been covered by the Wal-Mart insurance program. It was for pain and suffering and to partially make up for what she might have earned as a Wal-Mart employee had she not been destroyed in an accident. But the vultures at Wal-Mart didn't care. They wanted their money, and if it meant throwing their former employee out onto the street, well, that was too bad for her. They won their suit, and Shank's lawyer appealed. Last summer, Wal-Mart won again. Surprise surprise. Shank of course didn't know what was going on. One of the peculiarities of her injuries was that she was left with no short-term memory whatsoever. Under the circumstances, this could be viewed as a blessing. A week went by and she had no recollection of how the greedy bastards she'd once worked hard for had screwed her over. That's when they told her that her 18-year-old son Jeremy had been killed fighting in Iraq. She cried and cried. But then she forgot. The next time her husband came, she asked him where Jeremy was and he had to tell her all over again, and it was like she was hearing it for the first time. Her blessing had turned into a curse. It's been like that for eight months now. She's lost her son a dozen times. A Wal-Mart spokesman, John Simley, issued a statement defending the company's treatment of the bereaved Gold Star Mother. "Wal-Mart's plan is bound by very specific rules," he said. "We wish it could be more flexible in Mrs. Shank's case since her circumstances are clearly extraordinary, but this is done out of fairness to all associates who contribute to, and benefit from, the plan." His own mother must be very proud. Anyway, I'll never set foot in a Wal-Mart again. And God strike me dead if I do. http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/column358.html @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Anybody who wants a detailed straight-news account can check out: Accident Victims Face Grab for Legal Winnings Wal-Mart Paid Bills For Mrs. Shank, Then Sued for Money Back Wall Street Journal | November 20, 2007 http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB119551952474798582.html @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ WalmartWatch.com is a campaign of Five Stones and The Center for Community and Corporate Ethics http://walmartwatch.com Petition campaign & video of CNN report: http://action.walmartwatch.com/page/s/debbieshank Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 We received this note from Debbie Shank?s son, Christopher. He writes to address some of the issues surrounding the case, and explain just how deeply Wal-Mart?s actions have impacted his family. __________________ First of all, let it be known that I?m Debbie Shank?s son, and not some random dude putting in his two cents. That being said, here?s the skinny? When we sued the trucking company, our lawyer told us that the only amount we could get off of the trucking company was what the truck was insured for... namely, a million dollars. As they were a small trucking company, they had no real net worth, and the amount we could sue them for was just for their insurance. When we received the settlement of 1 million, a third of that was paid out to the lawyers. After that, my dad was given a portion of that to make up for lost wages. We told Wal-Mart about all of this, and they basically said ?Okay.? and did nothing. We set up the rest, 417K, to take care of mom. We took care of her for three years on that, but when the statute of limitations was set to expire on Wal-Mart suing us, they literally had days left, they filed to sue us. Our lawyer told us at the time that they were only doing this to keep their options open, but Wal-Mart decided that they wanted to go after the settlement, as they say time and time again, ?out of fairness for everyone in the medical plan?. And so it went. The first ruling came August 31, 2006. At the time it was the worst thing that had happened. Six days later, my brother was killed. Dad said ?Fine. Whatever. They won.? We were without any will to keep going. Our lawyers said ?We?ll appeal. You just don?t worry about things. We?ll take care of all of it.? Appeal after appeal, Wal-Mart won them all. We finally appealed to the Supreme Court. Last week, they said they weren?t going to take our case. We lost. Now, Wal-Mart can?t take any more money than we had in the trust fund, so they get that. But, we still have 150K in outstanding medical bills. We have a fund set up that has accepted donations, but it quickly depletes due to bills. Even with government assistance, we still must pay anywhere from 500-1000 per month to keep mom in the nursing home, and that?s not counting bills she has from trips to the hospital (a couple weeks ago she was bleeding internally) . The outstanding bills we have, they can sue my father directly, so it?s looking like he may have to sell his home at least. My youngest brother, if he wants to have the money to go to college, will himself either have to take out thousands in loans or join the military. Dad has worked all his life, was set to retire in 5 years, but now it?s looking as if he?ll have to work longer and longer. Plus he has cancer to worry about. So, that?s the story. I have a feeling that somewhere along the lines, be it by Wal-Mart, the courts, the lawyers, the trucking company, or a combination of all, we?ve been taken advantage of. We could only sue for so much, we had to pay the lawyers, the courts decided to maintain the status quo, and Wal-Mart sold it?s soul. Whoever?s fault it is, we?re screwed. Plain and simple. http://walmartwatch.com/blog/archives/debbie_shanks_son_on_wal_mart_and_family @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ And lastly: Yet another good reason why we need SINGLE PAYER: a scathing analytical response to the WSJ article posted by a reader on the WalmartWatch.com website: Subrogation is not health insurance. It is a concealed alteration (subsitution, transference, displacement) of your legal rights under the color of health care. You have assigned your legal right of recovery and damages unsuspectingly to non health care providers. The ?policy? acted only as a ?loan product? ultimately for legal recovery for WalMart for which Shank paid an interest rate ?premium? to use. When not used, health care insurance premiums are not refunded to the policy holders under a ?risk versus claim? dollar calculation and estimate of payouts and profit system. This is the basic method of insurance companies making a profit from policy premiums. Collectively the premiums are pooled together (and invested) for the asset base to payout claims on health care expenditures. This is not what WalMart wants to do. In the Shanks case the premium was ultimately taken as profit only for the issuer (WalMart) without the intent of health care at all but rather the seizure of a legal right through ?subrogation? producing additional profits beyond the premium collections themselves and the asset base for health care payouts. You will note that the health care policy that WalMart suckered Shank into buying does not cover her health care costs now and that policy does not now even exist for her health care. She paid her premiums on a health care insurance policy from WalMart. Now WalMart has ?dumped? her onto the state for her health care costs. Recovery of health care cost from a ?health insurance policy? payout is beyound the scope of the advertised claim of ?health care insurance?. Financial recovery for the issuer and ?subrogation? remains only as a concealed legal concept. It is not about health care, medical practice, medications or doctor visits and hospitalization etc. Nobody would buy this ?health insurance? loan product if they knew and understood the reality of the scam. Therefore the concealment and defrauding of the Shanks and the subsequent embarrassment from and for the ?love of money? psychopaths at WalMart HQ in Bentonville. http://walmartwatch.com/blog/archives/news_roundup_deborah_shank_v_wal_mart ========================================================= *** [==> If you're not part of the solution... you're part of the problem <==] ***