Thursday, January 20, 2011

Sell Me Something You Don't Know


I met a woman today who works at a for-profit health care insurance company. She refused to tell me for whom she worked, and said only it wasn't for "Blue."
(Glad to hear she didn't have anything to do with Joni's record.)

Anyway, she's an extortionist, however unwitting.
We started talking and I mentioned that my COBRA payment was $463.00 per month (CORRECTION: $563.00 PER MONTH) and with current prescription costs, it added up to almost $700.00 per month. I then said I was once, am now, and always will be a single-payer proponent. She laughed in my face and said, "What! Like a fucking Canadian?"
Yeah. Like that.
"Try getting an MRI in Canada!"
I told her that none of my Canadian friends seemed to be--close to 50 years of knowing them, by the way--MRI-deficient.

"Socialist!"
(Oh, and she had never met an actual Canadian.)
For-profit Polly had been drinking and was in town to meet with her "customers." Seems to me they're more like marks.
She said she has a daughter and a grandkid. When I asked her if she liked one of the benefits of health care reform that directly affects her--the ability to cover her adult daughter until age 26--she looked around, looked uneasy--then said, "yes." When I told her that I had many years of insurance ineligibility due to my self-employed status because of a pre-existing condition, she argued with me. Loudly.
She mocked me, mocked reform. She told me what I said wasn't true. I was stunned--then I asked for her card. She refused to give me one. I reminded her that a pre-existing condition as a self-employed adult wasn't just my own private Idaho for years and years; self-employed adults with such conditions are still legally ineligible for coverage--even under reform--until 2014. She didn't believe a word I said. After all, I'm a
socialist!
Did I mention she sells "health care insurance?"
As I was leaving, she continued to call me a socialist. Perhaps, had I asked her to tea...
Have a safe flight home, darlin'; I hope those socialist air traffic controllers guide your sorry ass safely, securely, and straight back home.


allvoices

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

...and since when did being a socialist become a bad thing? Next thing you know you'll accused of free thinking.

TBLMISBT