They have been there for the past two weeks. Every time I run into the grocery store for a quick gallon of organic milk, or my regular shopping, I have had the displeasure of being approached by these pests. I am not against championing for a good cause, and have often participated in fundraising and awareness raising events, both political and school related. In fact, the former (and hopefully future) social worker in me sees all underdog causes as worthy of my support. This particular cause I was approached about sends me into a tizzy that causes me to raise my eyebrow at the person holding the petition and before I can stop myself, the words "Are you kidding me?" escape with all the indignation I can muster.
The subject of the petition was....get this...stopping frivolous lawsuits! WOW! What a major problem for the United States right now! The Iraq war is such a minor inconvenience for us now, along with a president who imposes Executive Order for the first time in the history of the country, that I can't possibly be bothered by them. I need to focus my energies and support on making sure insurance companies can't be sued! Ha!
The response to my question put the petitioner immediately on the defensive. Her scripted response to me was "Don't you want cheaper insurance?". I could only roll my eyes at her. To think, she actually believed that lie about so-called frivolous lawsuits being the reason my insurance cost so much! What came out of my mouth were words that left her without an informed comback. "The only people I know who are suing people, are the insurance companies". With that, I turned and pushed my cart full of groceries to the car. As I neared my car I heard her mutter in a low tone, "She must work for a lawyer", and merrily turned her attentions to the next hopeful sucker. How does she sleep at night?
I hastily tossed my bags into the back of the car and made my way home, thinking about this poor lost soul who drank the koolaid the lobbyists fed her through a money-lined straw. It's amazing what people fall for under the guise of making the world a better place for all of us to live in. How can she believe that insurance companies have nothing but altruism as a motive for us poor, overpriced insurance premium payers? As if they want nothing more than to provide insurance for life's catastrophes at the lowest price possible. Their bottom line is not important to them...what matters most is how much they can save us a year paying for our insurance needs. Yea...right.
Let me tell you a story...
It was 1999. My husband, who has bowhunted for elk his entire life, was traipsing through the woods in the very small town he grew up in. This is a town where everyone knows everyone else, and a stranger sticks out like a sore thumb. He has been tracking these elk through all the trails he's walked since he was a toddler. He and his father have a secret language all their own when they talk about the trails and locations where they have successfully downed their prey. "You know that ravine that looks down over the river at 3 piling?" "You mean the one where that clump of short hemlocks slopes down into the pasture by 2 hump road?" On and on they go, talking about places only they know about. It's a foreign language to me and most other people listening in.
Anyway....
On this hunting excursion, my husband and his father were following their familiar paths seeking the elk. They had serious business on their faces, as usual, when they left the house before daylight. The plan was to drive the truck up the hill on the logging roads, then zigzag their way down in the hopes of picking up the trail of the elk. This is an all day event and I knew I wouldn't see him until sundown, so I wasn't concerned when he didn't show up until then. When he walked in the door clutching his elbow, I knew something was wrong. My father in law just looked at me and said, "He slipped down the ravine and landed on his elbow. I think he might have broken it". WHAT?????
Off we went to the nearest hospital....20 miles away. We entered the emergency room and the xray confirmed he had a fracture above the elbow. Luckily and responsibly, we had medical insurance and our deductible was a mere $50. My husband had his arm slinged, no cast required, just keep it immobile and don't use it. As the weeks wore on and his arm healed, the letter from the insurance company arrived. Thinking it was just an explanation of benefits paid out for his broken arm, I was surprised to see a questionnaire enclosed instead.
The questionnaire asked for information about my husband's injury. It wanted to know the date he was injured, the hospital he was taken to, what doctor he saw, etc. I was befuddled with these questions at first because I knew they had already paid them, so they should have all that information from the initial claim forms. My bewilderment stopped when I read the next question:
-Please give the name and address of the property and owner in which your injury occured.
Whoa! Does this mean what I think it means? Are they going to seek reimbursement from the property owner for the medical costs of my husband's injury? What??? Isn't this what I pay insurance premiums for? Why does it matter WHERE it happened? Well, let me tell you....
It matters because the insurance company has decided they want to make someone else responsible for his injury. It doesn't matter if we have paid more than enough premium to pay for the xray and medical care he received. Being self employed and entirely responsible for the premium payments, I am sure we had. But that doesn't matter to the insurance company. They were seeking this information so that the property owner would be forced to reimburse them for the cost of my husband's care. Thankfully, the property was owned by the state, so it's doubtful the insurance company aggressively pursued reimbursement from the very state that grants them the ability to conduct business there.
But what if he wasn't? What if the property owner was a boyhood friend of my husband's? What if that owner did not have liability insurance for that property? Can you guess what the insurance company would have done to be reimbursed for their costs? You got it! They would have SUED! They would have sued the pants off that property owner! By the time the matter would have made it through the court system, they would have tacked on legal fees and interest, and the amount of money they would have received would have been triple what the original claim was.
Insurance companies have no soul. None. Even though our Supreme Court has allowed corporations to have the same legal rights as a human being, they are still soulless, heartless black holes that reside within our society. Insurance companies are the ones who have elevated the frivolous lawsuits in this country. They are the ones jamming up the court system with their demand to be reimbursed so they can have a larger bottom line. But that's not what they tell you. They have to scare us with stories of rich lawyers feeding on the poor and uneducated who have been hurt by someone, anyone with more money than them. The McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit comes to mind. Along with the more recent judge suing over a pair of pants. They want you to believe that is the NORM in regards to lawsuits. But the reality is, most lawsuits are predicated either by an insurance company's refusal to pay, or gross negligence that caused the harm of another, or some other mega corporation suing another. Period. End of discussion. Done.
I can count on one finger the number of people I know who have sued. My sister got wrongly fired from a hospital. The new man in charge canned her while tainting her good name and professional position, making it nearly impossible for her to find similar work elsewhere. She sued and received a settlement from the former employer for the remainder of her salary for that year plus the cost of legal fees. Oh, and the employer had to pay a FINE to the government for discrimination on top of it! Lawsuits are our only method of fighting the big guys. An email, letter to the head honcho, or simple request made over the phone has no teeth and is often ignored by those who have wronged you. They want to limit our RIGHT to pursue our own reimbursement for their wrongdoing. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? As if the Patriot Act didn't null and void ENOUGH of my personal rights! I'll be damned if I'm going to give up my right to recoup a loss that I incurred at the negligent hands of another!
So, do I want to sign your petition? HELL NO!
The subject of the petition was....get this...stopping frivolous lawsuits! WOW! What a major problem for the United States right now! The Iraq war is such a minor inconvenience for us now, along with a president who imposes Executive Order for the first time in the history of the country, that I can't possibly be bothered by them. I need to focus my energies and support on making sure insurance companies can't be sued! Ha!
The response to my question put the petitioner immediately on the defensive. Her scripted response to me was "Don't you want cheaper insurance?". I could only roll my eyes at her. To think, she actually believed that lie about so-called frivolous lawsuits being the reason my insurance cost so much! What came out of my mouth were words that left her without an informed comback. "The only people I know who are suing people, are the insurance companies". With that, I turned and pushed my cart full of groceries to the car. As I neared my car I heard her mutter in a low tone, "She must work for a lawyer", and merrily turned her attentions to the next hopeful sucker. How does she sleep at night?
I hastily tossed my bags into the back of the car and made my way home, thinking about this poor lost soul who drank the koolaid the lobbyists fed her through a money-lined straw. It's amazing what people fall for under the guise of making the world a better place for all of us to live in. How can she believe that insurance companies have nothing but altruism as a motive for us poor, overpriced insurance premium payers? As if they want nothing more than to provide insurance for life's catastrophes at the lowest price possible. Their bottom line is not important to them...what matters most is how much they can save us a year paying for our insurance needs. Yea...right.
Let me tell you a story...
It was 1999. My husband, who has bowhunted for elk his entire life, was traipsing through the woods in the very small town he grew up in. This is a town where everyone knows everyone else, and a stranger sticks out like a sore thumb. He has been tracking these elk through all the trails he's walked since he was a toddler. He and his father have a secret language all their own when they talk about the trails and locations where they have successfully downed their prey. "You know that ravine that looks down over the river at 3 piling?" "You mean the one where that clump of short hemlocks slopes down into the pasture by 2 hump road?" On and on they go, talking about places only they know about. It's a foreign language to me and most other people listening in.
Anyway....
On this hunting excursion, my husband and his father were following their familiar paths seeking the elk. They had serious business on their faces, as usual, when they left the house before daylight. The plan was to drive the truck up the hill on the logging roads, then zigzag their way down in the hopes of picking up the trail of the elk. This is an all day event and I knew I wouldn't see him until sundown, so I wasn't concerned when he didn't show up until then. When he walked in the door clutching his elbow, I knew something was wrong. My father in law just looked at me and said, "He slipped down the ravine and landed on his elbow. I think he might have broken it". WHAT?????
Off we went to the nearest hospital....20 miles away. We entered the emergency room and the xray confirmed he had a fracture above the elbow. Luckily and responsibly, we had medical insurance and our deductible was a mere $50. My husband had his arm slinged, no cast required, just keep it immobile and don't use it. As the weeks wore on and his arm healed, the letter from the insurance company arrived. Thinking it was just an explanation of benefits paid out for his broken arm, I was surprised to see a questionnaire enclosed instead.
The questionnaire asked for information about my husband's injury. It wanted to know the date he was injured, the hospital he was taken to, what doctor he saw, etc. I was befuddled with these questions at first because I knew they had already paid them, so they should have all that information from the initial claim forms. My bewilderment stopped when I read the next question:
-Please give the name and address of the property and owner in which your injury occured.
Whoa! Does this mean what I think it means? Are they going to seek reimbursement from the property owner for the medical costs of my husband's injury? What??? Isn't this what I pay insurance premiums for? Why does it matter WHERE it happened? Well, let me tell you....
It matters because the insurance company has decided they want to make someone else responsible for his injury. It doesn't matter if we have paid more than enough premium to pay for the xray and medical care he received. Being self employed and entirely responsible for the premium payments, I am sure we had. But that doesn't matter to the insurance company. They were seeking this information so that the property owner would be forced to reimburse them for the cost of my husband's care. Thankfully, the property was owned by the state, so it's doubtful the insurance company aggressively pursued reimbursement from the very state that grants them the ability to conduct business there.
But what if he wasn't? What if the property owner was a boyhood friend of my husband's? What if that owner did not have liability insurance for that property? Can you guess what the insurance company would have done to be reimbursed for their costs? You got it! They would have SUED! They would have sued the pants off that property owner! By the time the matter would have made it through the court system, they would have tacked on legal fees and interest, and the amount of money they would have received would have been triple what the original claim was.
Insurance companies have no soul. None. Even though our Supreme Court has allowed corporations to have the same legal rights as a human being, they are still soulless, heartless black holes that reside within our society. Insurance companies are the ones who have elevated the frivolous lawsuits in this country. They are the ones jamming up the court system with their demand to be reimbursed so they can have a larger bottom line. But that's not what they tell you. They have to scare us with stories of rich lawyers feeding on the poor and uneducated who have been hurt by someone, anyone with more money than them. The McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit comes to mind. Along with the more recent judge suing over a pair of pants. They want you to believe that is the NORM in regards to lawsuits. But the reality is, most lawsuits are predicated either by an insurance company's refusal to pay, or gross negligence that caused the harm of another, or some other mega corporation suing another. Period. End of discussion. Done.
I can count on one finger the number of people I know who have sued. My sister got wrongly fired from a hospital. The new man in charge canned her while tainting her good name and professional position, making it nearly impossible for her to find similar work elsewhere. She sued and received a settlement from the former employer for the remainder of her salary for that year plus the cost of legal fees. Oh, and the employer had to pay a FINE to the government for discrimination on top of it! Lawsuits are our only method of fighting the big guys. An email, letter to the head honcho, or simple request made over the phone has no teeth and is often ignored by those who have wronged you. They want to limit our RIGHT to pursue our own reimbursement for their wrongdoing. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? As if the Patriot Act didn't null and void ENOUGH of my personal rights! I'll be damned if I'm going to give up my right to recoup a loss that I incurred at the negligent hands of another!
So, do I want to sign your petition? HELL NO!
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