Because the poster says so! Jeez, can't you even read?

Oh SHit !
He didn't mean actually think about it. Just rhetorically think about it.
Geeze, now you've gone and spoiled his speech. Think about that.

Understand? May not.

They will do it, or essentially, the federal government will be giving a huge subsidy to auto insurers. I mean, if you are underwriting insurance, and don't have to worry about medical bills, that's a major factor out of your cost to provide insurance.

Wouldn't national health care have covered her nursing home needs, thus eliminating the settlement and Wal-vampire's draining of the victim?

It won't be a subsidy. It will reduce the overall cost of insurance and then the cost of insurance for individual buyers will be reduced as well.

More relevantly, you didn't answer my question: Why would the federal government sue individual people to recover costs for their treatment if the federal government (not the individual person) is responsible for those costst? Under what theory would they be able to recover?

Subrogation suits are a direct result of the medical insurance system we have now. They would in no way be encouraged by going to universal health care. Rather, they would be eliminated in the medical bill context.

1. Deborah Shank was in an accident.
2. Deborah's medical expenses were covered by her health insurance.
3. Deborah sued the trucking company responsible for the accident.
4. Deborah won the suit.
5. Wal-Mart (actually the Wal-Mart health plan) found out about the award and sued Deborah to recover the cost of her care. In short, Wal-Mart was claiming to be the payor of last resort with the payor of first resort being the trucking company.
6. Wal-Mart won the suit and subsequent appeal. Deborah owes Wal-Mart $470K.

Now.

Take the events surrounding Deborah's situation and replace the Wal-Mart health plan with Medicare or Medicaid. The result would have been the same.

The situation will be the same in a national healthcare system. If you win a liability suit against a private entity, the federal government will act as the payor of last resort and be able to recoup the cost of healthcare from the money awarded by the court.

That's correct. Under the current system.

That's entirely incorrect.

The reason the insurer can recover the cost of the health care from the money awarded by the court is because the court is awarding the "wrong" party the cost of the health care. Let's back up and do the hypothetical under a national health care system.

1) You get hit by the pie truck.
2) You sue the pie truck company for compensatory damages.
3) You cannot sue the pie truck company for medical bills because you paid no medical bills (the government did). You recover for your pain and suffering (or other compensatory damages such as lost wages, etc.)
4) The government paid the medical bills, therefore if they choose to they can step in and subrogate against the pie truck company for those medical bills, but they can't go after you because you didn't recover anything for them.

Once again, a national health care system removes the individual from the responsibility for paying for medical treatment. Thus, they won't be able to recover for medical bills in the first place. Thus, subrogation suits against the individual (which is what we are talking about here) will cease to be an issue.

Precisely. That's how subrogation is supposed to work. In an auto-accident, the victim's insurance company pays the upfront medical costs to expedite treatment, and then seeks reimbursement from the at-fault party.

The settlement this woman received was not for the upfront medical costs her insurance covered immediately following her injuries, the settlement was for future medical costs that have not yet, nor will ever be covered by her insurance plan that she will continue to incur for the rest of her life as a result of those injuries.

If Wal-Mart wants to be reimbursed for those upfront expenses that they covered immediately after her injury, then they need to settle with the at-fault party in that accident, not the victim.

Your assertion does not fit with any of the national healthcare programs outlined by the current presidential candidates. You may have a plan that eliminates this possibility, but no one running for the White House does.

The candidates are proposing a national healthcare plan which will be managed much like an HMO or PPO is today. This idea that the individual is going to be removed from the process simply isn't true. Well, except for the actual healthcare being administered. Then the patient will have no say in what services are provided. The government will decide for you.

And why won't the individual be removed from the process? Because not all Americans are created equally! Remember, the nail in every plank of the Democrats platform is "the rich are evil - make them pay for it". So, those that exist above a certain economic benchmark will pay for their own healthcare!

BOYCOTT WAL-MART
pass it on

I agree. Wal-Mart should have never won the suit against Deborah because the money she won was for future expenses.

This is more what I was getting at. The government will go after _somebody_ for the cost of accidents, as absorbing the cost of things like that is not the domain of ordinary health insurance.

No. You're wrong. I'm not going to get into the policy debate over whether nationalized health care is a good idea because you don't appear to be interested in actual debate anyway. My point was that subrogation suits are not an additional reason to fear the big bad monster of universal health care. That is the case, as I've shown. You can fiddle with the sliders of what the Democrats are proposing vs. a pure national health care system, but the bottom line is that the more nationalized a health care system you have the less of a problem you have with subrogation suits against indivuduals.

Oh come on, dude. You're just throwing out bullshit platitudes at this point. Why should anyone make the effort to engage you in actual conversation if you're just going to pull this bumper sticker crap all the time?

Absorbing the costs of what? I'm not sure what you're getting at here.