What is so bad about capitalism? Just ask the Shank family.
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Prior to the accident, Shank worked at Wal-Mart stocking shelves, and had signed up for the company’s health and benefits plan. Following the accident, Wal-Mart paid out about $470,000 for Debbie’s medical expenses.
Two years after the accident, Debbie and her husband Jim were awarded approximately $1 million in a lawsuit against the trucking company involved in the accident. After legal fees were paid, the remaining amount of $417,000 was placed in a trust to pay for Shank’s long-term care.
The legal battle that the Shank family had to undergo to secure funds for Debbie Shank’s medical care alone would be sufficient to indict the capitalist system for its crimes against the working class. But Wal-Mart, true to its traditions, decided to raise the cruelty bar a notch.
Wal-Mart sued the Shank family for the $470,000 it had paid out, citing a legal technique used by insurance companies called “subrogation.” The legal loophole allows a company to recoup expenses incurred for the injured party’s medical care should that person receive damages from a lawsuit with a third party. Subrogation is an increasingly common policy in employee health insurance plans in the United States.
The court ruled that Wal-Mart was entitled to the family’s trust—money that had been painstakingly put aside to provide long-term medical care for Debbie Shank.
In the third quarter of 2007 alone, Wal-Mart reported net sales of $90 billion.
Capitalism then dealt the Shank family another devastating blow. One week after the court ruled against the Shanks in appeal, their 18-year-old son was killed in Iraq, just two weeks after he had been deployed.
The injuries that Debbie Shank sustained impacted her short-term memory, and although she attended her son’s funeral, she breaks down in tears every time she is told about her son’s death as if hearing the news for the first time.
The Shanks appealed their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In March, the court determined that it would not hear the case.
The family’s legal battle with Wal-Mart has left the Shank family in economic ruin. Last year, husband Jim Shank divorced Debbie so that she could qualify for greater Medicaid benefits. Jim Shank is recovering from prostate cancer, but he is forced to work two jobs in order to pay the bills.
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart makes excuses to justify its despicable actions. The retail giant’s spokesman John Simley states: “Wal-Mart’s plan is bound by very specific rules. … 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.” (CNN, 2008)
Wal-Mart’s excuses are nothing but lies. “Fairness to all associates” could be achieved just as easily—although not as profitably—by not applying such vile standards to any employee. The multi-billion dollar mega-corporation is more than capable of providing all its workers with free, quality health care, as well a living wage and pensions. Yet, Wal-Mart continues to blame other workers to justify its vile, anti-worker attacks.
The Shank family’s tribulations demonstrate the truth about capitalism: It is an inhumane system that treats basic human needs as commodities and expenses, as opposed to rights that all workers have earned by virtue of the social wealth they create through their labor. The capitalist courts of “justice” uphold the rights of private property and profits over the right to live.
No amount of money could ever compensate the Shanks for the loss of their son to the criminal Iraq war. But to the imperialists, the pain and suffering of thousands of U.S. families and millions of Iraqi families is a bargain price to pay for access to resources, markets and expanded profit opportunities.
The story of the Shanks underscores the urgency for all working-class people to unite to smash the profit system once and for all.
