@#!!!&*^%$

(this is what I imagine an insurance company looks like)


I got a notice in the mail yesterday from Anthem Blue Cross, the insurance company. This is what it said, verbatim:

Dear Sophie I :

Re: Important Changes for Your Coverage
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your membership and to let you know that we continue to work hard to make health care affordable and to meet your health care needs in important and innovative ways.

Rate Changes
Your rate changes are effective 03/01/2009
Your medical plan's current monthly premium rate is $399.30, and your medical plan's new monthly rate will be $499.40.

...

You are important to us. We know that you appreciate the benefits of your Anthem Blue Cross coverage...as well as the peace of mind that goes along with it.

Sincerely,

signature
Joe Ruiz
Vice President and General Manager, Group Business
Anthem Blue Cross

Such a nice letter, right? Especially given that the service provided by Anthem has been so, well, let's just say ERRATIC for the last five years. Maybe even NONEXISTENT? I don't even want to bring up that old anger toward health insurance companies. It runs deep and awful. Sophie's policy is exorbitantly expensive because she can't be covered otherwise. The rate quote above, now 25% higher (and don't you wonder what the extra $.10 is for?) only covers her, not the rest of our family.

Don't you wonder where exactly these insurance companies are? I mean physically. Where are the buildings? Where are the workers? Where is Mr. Joe Ruiz, Vice President and General Manager? I have a feeling that Anthem is buried deep in the earth somewhere, its subterranean offices peopled by robots or lobotomized terrorists. Perhaps that's what they're doing at Guantanamo. Because I'm basically a pacifist but would be hard put not to resort to violence in an insurance company if I saw it, say, on Wilshire Blvd. And I'm sure that I'm not the only one.

If blogs are monitored by Homeland Security, rest assured, you fine patriots, that I'm essentially powerless. And while the powerless are often the most dangerous, retribution is really only in my head, dripping into my fingers and this screen.

Rest assured, Mr. Ruiz, wherever you are that my "peace of mind" is intact. I wonder if yours is.