We're a divided country but can we agree?
Insurance is boring, it brings us no glee.
So all the big Corps, that offer it to us
Must think of new ways, with which they can do us.
Those insurance giants, they got so creative.
They presented to us, a Neanderthal native.
If buying insurance by cavemen is really that easy,
We all should go for it, despite a pitch that's so cheesy.
Progressive and Flo have pushed bundling for ages.
She's cheerful, a pain, and like Covid, contagious.
The shifty dude Mayhem chooses the opposite tactic,
For protection from him, buy an Allstate proph'lactic.
Who can forget, that rude duck from AF-LAC?
Twas the late Gilbert Gottfried who made that fowl quack.
While LiMu the Emu goes through all his paces,
That slimey green gecko shows up in weird places.
We watch Jake from State Farm, the two guys who portrayed him,
Wore khacki slacks with red shirts, yes that's how they played him.
And speaking of players, whom we're refusing to cheer for
Screw that Packer QB, when selling insurance he's here for.
How many of you, who are reading today,
Remember Jack Benny and his skinflinty way?
State Farm was the sponsor of his comedy show,
He pinched all his pennies and hoped they would grow.
And of course there was Alex, of the Jeopardy! game,
Who hawked life insurance, til death put out his flame.
And jolly old Ed, latenight side-kick to Johnny,
Was the barker who told you, getting coverage was bonnie.
The slogans, the symbols that they use to distract us.
While picking our pockets, those premiums impact us.
Yet I hope that these memories still brought you a smile.
Whilst John Hancock's abandoned the Magnificent Mile.
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I have mentioned my devotion to Grammarly before. It is an app that lives on my desktop PC, monitoring my spelling and my grammar. It has saved me from dozens of there for their swaps, from hundreds of misplaced commas, and from tens of thousands of mispellings misspellings.
Grammarly also uses its Artificial Intelligence brain to categorize the “tone” of my writings. My latest report card was:
I guess that is a fairly good assessment of my personality and of the way I write. But when you add it up, it only comes to 99%, not 100%. Since that report, I have been wrestling with myself, trying to figure out what makes up the final 1% of me.
This morning I discovered it! I became ANGRY and it felt good. Some background: Over the weekend, we traded in Barb’s car for an updated, gently used one. We handled the haggling and paperwork on Friday and Saturday (The price of a one-year-old used car was practically as high as the original MSRP, but that’s a story for another day.)
Barb picked up the sparkling white sedan yesterday. I told her to be sure to notify our insurance agency about the update, and gave her the name and phone number of our local agent. Barb called twice, left two voice mails, and got no response. I called the agency main number, left a message, and got the same response as Barb–nothing.
Starting to get fed up, and not wanting Barb to be driving around an uninsured car, I tried a different tact. I called the national emergency number on the back of our insurance card, explained the situation, and begged to be transferred to the correct extension at the national office.
I was connected with someone who could give us immediate coverage, though he pointed out this was really supposed to be done by the local agent. I nodded my head and thought “whatever you say, just get me covered.”
Today I got a call back from the local agency. “Did you leave a message about something?” That’s when my 1% let loose.
“Why didn’t anyone answer our calls yesterday? What happened to our agent? Why weren’t we informed she was no longer with the agency? Who was taking care of our account?”
I didn’t lose control. I didn’t act like Matt Nagy dropping F-Bombs on the officials in last night’s Bear’s game. But I made no attempt to hide my anger at such poor customer service to a “Private-Client” at a very high-end insurance agency.
I know it was a small thing to become furious with. I know most people have much greater concerns and existential reasons for anger. But it felt good to let that 1% of me fly–even if just for a moment.
So maybe 1% Anger will show up on my next Grammarly report card. Until then, I just hope it just keeps finding my missing commas.
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Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, no matter which one you call it, it has probably had some effect on you or your family. As a “bleeding heart liberal,” I applaud the expansion of some sort of insurance coverage to millions of Americans. As a physician, employer and provider of health care insurance for the two of us, I have my reservations about the cost-benefit ratio. I have been hit by higher premiums, higher deductibles, changing provider networks and complex pharmacy rules. I understand that even without the ACA, health insurance premiums would rise pretty steadily every year, but some of the other perturbations in the health care system seem to be a direct result of the Act. And don’t ask Barb about the phone calls she gets from our insurance carrier offering to make her primary care appointments for her, probably as a result of the carrier trying to meet some new quality regulation. As she points out to the caller regularly, she is quite able to make an appointment, and money spent on calling her is money wasted.
When I look for data about the effectiveness of the Act, I can find statistics about the number of new insurance enrollees and Medicaid enrollees, but nothing much telling me if the health of the nation has improved and if people are satisfied with their coverage. So I am taking an informal poll. Its just a few questions, and won’t be scientifically significant, but if you have a few moments, click on the link below. If we have enough results, I will publish them at a later time. To that end, please feel free to pass this post around!
Click here to take the poll.
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Just Like Starting Over 