Article of the Month

Why were Miami area citizens not allowed to buy health insurance?

A few years ago, a health insurance company telemarketing division was calling the Port Saint Lucie to Miami region drumming up small business owners interested in health insurance. The Telemarketers acquired several hundred sales leads which were passed on to the insurance agent working in that area. A few days later the agent called the manager of the telemarketing division complaining that he did not want the sales leads for the Miami area because they did not speak a whole lot of English down there. The Manager assured the agent that all sales leads are acquired and verified in English, and there would not be a language barrier. The Agent said he didn’t care, the leads would be a waste of his time trying to work them, and he threw them away.
Whether or not there might have been a language barrier, everyone within that region was never contacted. (Keep in mind that the business owners were interested in the product and wanted to be contacted). Why would a person risk losing hundreds of dollars for themselves and thousands of dollars for the company that they represent? Whatever the reason, that particular agent made the decision on his own, but it affected hundreds of others.
This brings up a greater issue. Are non-English speaking people being given a fair deal in our society? And is the surrounding community as a whole being discriminated against.

This will be the topic of next month’s article.