After writing a few blog posts about my thankfulness and appreciation of the DOC, I now want to write a post about the local and state government. This, unfortunately, is not a thankful post. After losing my COBRA insurance almost two weeks ago now, I reached out and sent e-mails to every single local and state elected officials, every advisory board, panel, and organization I could think of. With it being re-election time, I knew that their plates would all be filled and they would not have much time for a voter because they are focused on the masses at this time looking for a re-election.
On the other hand, I thought that I would at least get some sort of responses that explained that, because I could understand that and be fine with that response. However, the responses (the few that I did receive) were not that great.
When it came to the different agencies or groups that I contacted, none of them seem to be the right place to contact. About 5-6 different e-mail responses said, “that’s not something we handle, contact this department.” So, I would contact “that” department, and they would say the same thing. Eventually, I was sent to 5 different groups until it came full cycle and I began getting referred to groups that I already contacted. Either, there is no sort of group out there that can help somebody who just lost COBRA, or nobody wanted to get their hands dirty. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, everybody likes clean hands during re-election season.
So, it’s back to working with Big Red and Big Blue (ADA and JDRF) about resources or advocacy plans on making sure there is some sort of group or organization that can help fight this.
The adventure continues….
I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I think maybe you should go public. Most cities have TV news segments where an “investigative team” goes after consumers who were swindled by big corporations (Google “Arnold Diaz” for an example of one in New York). Once it gets on TV, usually the ones who screwed up are shamed into making it right, PLUS the TV station hunts down the people to talk to. Several newspapers do this too.
If you don’t mind the publicity, I’d suggest trying it.