So the hubby comes home tonight and opens his mail.
And now we know the details.
To all those who think employer-based healthcare plans are the pure and only true path to medicine? Given my medical history, insurance is a subject close to home here. Are you sitting down?
My husband and I are celebrating our 30th anniversary this summer. Thirty years ago, with both of us having grandfathers on the political scene in DC for decades, they knew everybody, they had us invite everybody to the reception, we sent out 500 invitations and 500 people actually showed up! We were standing in that receiving line for three and a half solid hours with no breaks in the flow of humanity, most of whom my new husband and I didn’t know, all these people taking the time out of their lives to come shake our hands and wish us well.
We solemnly promised our own children we would never do that to them.
I guess one could say now that we had a lot of witnesses, having no idea we might someday need them. (One thank-you note, on the other hand, was returned two months after the wedding as “recipient deceased.” That was fast. We might be in trouble here.)
My husband’s employer, a Fortune 500 company, now says we must produce our marriage certificate, and fast, or they are cutting off my medical insurance on the assumption of fraud. They are doing this to everybody. We claim John is our son? We’d better produce the birth certificate and prove it, and his school transcript, too. We have to order the license or the birth certificate from the states they happened in? Oh, those states are furloughing workers and are weeks or even, in California’s case, months behind on all paperwork? So sad too bad, you’re out.
It took California over ten weeks to process my auto registration payment, and that’s when they were in effect getting paid money by me to do so, and not just some nominal fee. Okay, yes, we have the kid’s birth certificate, but not his transcript. And what of all the people who don’t have a copy on hand for their kids? Or of their marriage certificate?
I so much want to ask the CEO, whose own insurance, I am sure, is in no way imperiled: exactly what kind of corporate culture do they think they’re trying for here? Are they familiar with the term meta-message? Could you shake each employee’s hand, look them in the eye, and convince them you were wishing them and their families…well?