This could be your parent (my 99 year-old father, bludgeoned by AARP).
Of all the things I can tell you about my father – and there are many – the most important thing is this: he never quit on me. Or anyone he cared about. If you were a friend or loved one, Harry always stood in your corner.
There is one other thing about my dad: actuaries hate him.
My father’s world was small. He loved my mother, his children, my best friend, the men he served with overseas, and his colleagues at work. That was it.
My father understood his role as husband, father, soldier, supervisor, and provider. His job did not pay well (he managed a warehouse) but for him it was a serious enterprise, never more so than when it came to the treatment of his warehouse colleagues. They were family. And when they had problems or workplace concerns, it was my father that they came to see.
My father worked hard. He worked hard so his children could have a better life. He served overseas in WWII (one of the oldest men to enlist) so people around the world could have better lives. For him, it was that simple. He was cut from old cloth, living in a world that was black and white.
My father is now an elder – he will turn ninety-nine in September, and early this morning I found out that AARP had cancelled his health insurance.
My father has been an AARP member in good standing since 1982, paying his insurance premiums every month, and never once in those years was he late with a payment. It is worth noting that my father lived through the Depression and has a sense of fiscal discipline that is almost impossible to conceive. In 2009, when Harry turned 96, I began to notice a decline in his mental acuity, and it was then that I had my first conversation with him about assuming responsibility for his bills.
“Pop, I’d like to help you with your bills.”
“Fuck you,” he said to me. My father has always had a salty mouth and was not going quietly into decline. That the conversation was taking place the same day I was asking him to hand over his car keys seemed to exacerbate things.
“Pop, it’s not safe for you to get behind the wheel.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Well, for one, you drive on the wrong side of the road.”
“I’m a better driver than those fucking Koreans.”
“That’s not the issue.”
“You should be talking to them and not me.”
My father, to this day, remains a spirited man, especially when it comes to his inalienable rights, of which driving on the wrong side of the road seems to be one.
Back to the bills: in late 2009, I finally assumed fiscal responsibility for Harry. Many of you have been, are, or will be in similar situations at some point in your life. Let me just say this: the last thing you need in your life at a time when assuming responsibility for an elder is red tape.
Yesterday, I received a refund check from AARP in the sum of $1700, along with a note stating that my father’s policy had been cancelled. When I called AARP this morning asking for an explanation, I was told that the policy had been cancelled due to “late payment,” and that the refund was for payments made over the past five months (payments after the policy had been terminated). When I asked why I was finding out about this now, the representative told me that a termination notice had been sent out in January.
“I never got one,” I said.
“I’m sorry but we can’t help you,” she replied.
“What about reinstating the policy?” I asked. “Can we simply reinstate the policy for a member in good standing since 1982?”
“We can’t reinstate policies after a six-month lapse,” she replied.
What am I to make of the fact that AARP had been collecting and cashing checks for five months without any subsequent word about a lapsed policy? Or the fact that a refund check was issued only after six months had passed making reinstatement of my father’s policy impossible? Ethel Percy Andrus founded AARP as a way of seeing “to the needs of people in the second half of their lives.” The organization’s motto is “To serve, not to be served.” What would Ethel have to say about my father’s predicament? He was not being served, nor were his needs being seen to.
I tried to reason with the representative from AARP. She wasn’t interested. She wasn’t listening. She was working off a script. She was “doing her job.”
Well, my father had a job, too. But just doing it was never an option for him. He had obligations to others, and as a result, always went the extra mile. When duty called, he enlisted. I remember asking my father who were the toughest people he served alongside in the war – Air Force, Marines, Navy – and his response was “combat nurses.”
My father has never had much patience for people who “phone it in.”
America is not a country built on the backs of men and women just “doing their job.” America is a country built on the backs of men and women who did and gave more than was expected of them. Men and women who figured out solutions to problems; who treated people as customers, not policy numbers; who found a way to get things done.
AARP has sent my father’s “case” to some board for “review.” Check. They are saying I will get a letter in the mail in “7 to 10 business days,” with a review of their “findings.” Check. In the meantime, my father is walking through the world without a supplemental safety net.
It’s not right. It’s not fair. And AARP should be ashamed.
Addendum: AARP reached out to me within 48 hours of this initial post, and acted quickly to reinstate my father’s health coverage. This is good example of how organizations need to move in the 21st century – by listening to customers, by paying attention to consumer sentiment, and acting accordingly.
