I Don’t Accept Your Apology

If you read my last blog post about my disability insurer you’d know that my benefits were suspended as communicated by my case manager. If you didn’t I encourage you to read Goliath Insurer v.s. David the Cancer Patient. A funny thing happened on October 21st at about 4:30pm. That’s 13 days after I submitted my required paperwork, 8 days after my benefits were wrongfully suspended and I communicated that fact to my case manager via phone call, and 3 hours after I got off a phone call with a law firm to represent me against Goliath. At about 4:30pm on October 21st I received this email from my case manager.

Well Erin I don’t accept your apology, and by no means do I understand how a professional can get away with such unprofessional behavior. At best you didn’t look at your email for at least 4 business days, check your voicemail for 6 business days, or have the common courtesy and professionalism to contact the insured who’s benefits you threatened to wrongfully suspend for 6 business days. On October 13th I called to inform you of the date and time the required documentation was delivered to your inbox. When I got no call back from you recognizing that you received my call or my correspondence I contacted legal council. I had to contact legal council because it seems the only thing Fortune 100 bullies like Goliath Insurance are willing to respond to his a person that is willing to fight back.

Every 2 years or so people like me have to jump through the hoops billion dollar companies like you put in front of us just to be able to maintain our benefits. Do you really think I want to be disability? Do think I like being 35 years old living at home with my parents because it’s impossible to live off of $17,000 a year, which is what’s left after I pay my income tax and $3,000 in health insurance premiums? I don’t have much room for food or rent after taking another $2,500 out to pay my healthcare deductible and that’s if I’m lucky enough to see doctors that are in network. Add another $1,500 to that total if the doctors are out of network. Those numbers don’t even account for the $5,000 that was spent on airfare, lodging and rental cars to see a specialist out of state either. Believe me I would much rather be making $50,000-$100,000 a year as a productive member of society with a nice quality of life, but I have to play the cards I’m dealt. So Fortune 100 Giants like you try to manipulate the system to extort as much blood as they can out of people like me.

However, Goliath’s greedy nature and the lackadaisical attitude you seem to display regarding people’s lives and well being isn’t what bothers me the most. What bothers me is that I learned that monstrous Insurance giants like you can torment and harass people like me, and then hide behind the ERISA Law. I was infuriated to have a lawyer specializing in ERISA law explain that I can’t pursue insurance behemoths for what any reasonable person could deduce to be a history of harassing behavior. First you require the federal government to subsidize your financial obligations with Social Security Disability. Then you say I’m healthy when all medical evidence says otherwise, and I have to sue you to reinstate my terminated benefits. Next you require me to provide access to my Social Security account so that you can revisit my payment history that is 5 years old, and demand you be repaid money that Social Security supposedly overpaid. Finally, you terminate my benefits a second time, without cause, and expect me to blow it off because you couldn’t perform your basic job functions.

As my head exploded from my blood pressure shooting through the roof after reading your most recent half-assed apology letter, my mother tried to get me to relax and not “make waves”. I nearly tore her head off for that remark. Lets make something clear, my life will not come to an end if I have to spend $3,000 to have my benefits reinstated after you terminate them out of incompetence or what should be investigated as a pattern of harassment. I don’t need the disability check! I nearly tore my mother heads off for even entertaining the idea of not standing up for myself.

I have the ability to fight back, and as such it is my duty to stand up to people like you because there are plenty of people out there that can’t stand up for themselves. If I didn’t stand up for myself I would be condoning your behavior. I would be condoning every time you try to bully someone who can’t afford to fight back. I’d be condoning the behavior that could cause a family to be evicted from their home, or children to go hungry. At this point in time the only reason I write is because I have the ability to express my thoughts intelligently and in a moderately eloquent fashion.

I now find myself waiting, yet again, for your next installment of your bullying harassment tactics, where you try to find some B.S. technicality to terminate my benefits. However, mark my words, the day is coming that someone like me will find a way to circumvent the Teflon ERISA shield Goliath cowers behind and hold you accountable. Who knows, one day an Attorney General might recognize that your behavior isn’t to far removed from the extortion perpetrated by organized crime, and charge you under the RICO law.

 

 © Christopher L. Hedges and AverageJoesStory.com, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Christopher L. Hedges and AverageJoesStory.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.