{"id":15087,"date":"2008-04-02T11:10:41","date_gmt":"2008-04-02T15:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15087.html"},"modified":"2008-04-02T11:10:41","modified_gmt":"2008-04-02T15:10:41","slug":"wal-mart-moved-by-fierce-public-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wal-mart-moved-by-fierce-public-backlash\/","title":{"rendered":"Wal-Mart ‘moved’ by fierce public backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Wall Street Journal ran an item in November<\/a> that was so stunning, it didn’t even seem possible. The story was about a woman named Deborah Shank.<\/p>\n

A collision with a semi-trailer truck seven years ago left 52-year-old Deborah Shank permanently brain-damaged and in a wheelchair. Her husband, Jim, and three sons found a small source of solace: a $700,000 accident settlement from the trucking company involved. After legal fees and other expenses, the remaining $417,000 was put in a special trust. It was to be used for Mrs. Shank’s care.<\/p>\n

Instead, all of it is now slated to go to Mrs. Shank’s former employer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, the retail giant’s health plan sued the Shanks for the $470,000 it had spent on her medical care. A federal judge ruled last year in Wal-Mart’s favor, backed by an appeals-court decision in August. Now, her family has to rely on Medicaid and Mrs. Shank’s social-security payments to keep up her round-the-clock care.<\/p>\n

“I don’t understand why they need to do this,” says Mr. Shank on a recent visit to the nursing home.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The company’s motivations notwithstanding, how<\/i> Wal-Mart went about doing this was just as incredible — Shank was part of the company’s healthcare plan, which included a clause that said Wal-Mart “reserves the right to recoup the medical expenses it paid for someone’s treatment if the person also collects damages in an injury suit.”<\/p>\n

As a result, the trust Shank’s family needed for her care belonged to Wal-Mart, which wanted it all. As if the story couldn’t possibly get worse, six days before a court ruled in Wal-Mart’s favor, Shank’s 18-year-old son was killed in Iraq. Adding insult to injury, Shank’s husband felt compelled to divorce his brain-damaged wife because a healthcare administrator told him she might be eligible for some kind of public aid if she were a single woman. (As hilzoy recently noted<\/a>, we actually live in a country in which someone has to divorce their ailing spouse in order to get them care.)<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Wal-Mart, which has been known to have more than a few public-relations problems, is not immune to public outrage.
\n
\nYesterday, the commercial behemoth reversed course<\/a> and announced that Shank can keep the trust to pay for her medical care.<\/p>\n

“Occasionally, others help us step back and look at a situation in a different way. This is one of those times,” Wal-Mart Executive Vice President Pat Curran said in a letter. “We have all been moved by Ms. Shank’s extraordinary situation.” […]<\/p>\n

Wal-Mart sued the Shanks to recoup $470,000 it paid for her medical care. However, a court ruled that the company could only recoup about $275,000 — the amount that was left in a trust fund for her care.<\/p>\n

The Shanks appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court declined in March to hear the case. CNN told the couple’s story last week, prompting thousands of angry blog responses and at least two online petitions to boycott the company.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Wal-Mart said in a letter to Jim Shank that it is modifying its health care plan to allow “more discretion” in individual cases.<\/p>\n

“We wanted you to know that Wal-Mart will not seek any reimbursement for the money already spent on Ms. Shank’s care, and we will work with you to ensure the remaining amounts in the trust can be used for her ongoing care,” Curran said.<\/p>\n

“We are sorry for any additional stress this uncertainty has placed on you and your family.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wal-Mart’s “sorry.” Great.<\/p>\n

I’d like to think all’s well that ends well, but the fact that Wal-Mart tried to do this in the first place falls comfortably in the “unforgivable” category.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Wall Street Journal ran an item in November that was so stunning, it didn’t even seem possible. The story was about a woman named Deborah Shank. A collision with a semi-trailer truck seven years ago left 52-year-old Deborah Shank permanently brain-damaged and in a wheelchair. Her husband, Jim, and three sons found a small […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15087\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}