E-commerce
Sunday, December 21 2008
These days, a person can buy just about anything online with one or two clicks. When I tried to pay my COBRA premium, it took me half an hour.
My employer subcontracts COBRA management to a company called ADP Benefits Services. They’re supposed to send me a coupon every month, which I return with payment. I haven’t received the January coupon, and I’m about to leave town, so I thought I might try online.
I went to their website and input the requested information – nothing happened. I tried again – nothing. Then I noticed the tiny print that said the page was optimized to run Explorer – so I had to switch to a computer that has Explorer, instead of Firefox. That worked, and I was able to register. Once I was registered, I had to sign back in to my account. Then to pay my premium for January, I had register again for an online payment account with ADP. Then I had to input my checking account information because they don’t take credit cards.
If you’re thinking, “gee, sounds like they don’t really want your money”, you’re exactly right. ADP’s mission is to eject people like me from the risk pool; every payment they process is a loss to their business model. Every coupon I get includes a few pages of fine print detailing the myriad reasons they might end my COBRA enrollment, leaving me without health insurance.
American health care: not only do we have millions of uninsured people, but we pay companies like ADP money to strip people of their health insurance.
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