“But that’s totally crazy,” Brian managed. “That’s the opposite of what everyone understands about a deductible.”
“Excuse me, but it is very clearly explained in the policy. It’s the reason you were advised to read it carefully. All our salespeople make a big point of making sure our customers understand their policies. And it is all spelled out in our extensive promotional materials, which I’m certain you were given.”
“Maybe it was described,” Brian admitted, yet he still felt cheated and incensed. Actually, he barely remembered how he and Emma had ended up with their Peerless Health Insurance in the first place. Was he the one who had found it or had it been Emma? He didn’t know. All he could recall was talking with her about the need to have something for the rare “just-in-case” possibility and that they needed to look into the short-term policies the government was pushing. In many ways they were between a rock and a hard place thanks to a screwy healthcare system dependent on corporate or government employment.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Ebony asked. He could tell she was at the end of her patience with his unexpected appearance. “I really have to get back to work, and I have at least a dozen people on hold.”
“I have a few more questions,” Brian demanded, his rising anger causing him to flush. “I’m staring at a nearly hundred-and-ninety-thousand-dollar bill and counting, which boggles my mind. I had no idea hospitalization was so expensive. But you and your friends here certainly knew since you’re in the damn healthcare business. Here’s my question: Above and beyond the screwy deductible business, how the hell can you people possibly justify selling a policy that’s going to bankrupt a family by only paying a thousand dollars a day? I mean, in contrast to all of us common folk with limited experience with hospitals, all of you insurance types surely know that a thousand dollars a day for hospital costs is equivalent to pissing on a forest fire.”
“Just a minute, Mr. Murphy!” she stammered with obvious indignation. “I’m not going to sit here and allow you to verbally abuse me.”
“Maybe I should be complaining to someone higher up,” Brian said, reining in his anger by recognizing he was talking with a mere functionary. “I apologize for singling you out. But try to understand my situation. I’m facing financial ruin, and maybe the details of my insurance coverage were spelled out in the small print, but as a member of the general public, this seems to amount to a type of fraud. Maybe I should file a complaint of unfair and deceptive business practices with something like the Better Business Bureau.”
“Filing a complaint or even instigating a legal action is your right, as I told you a week ago on the phone,” Ebony said, partially mollified by his apology and the change of his tone. “But, as I also told you, the chances of anything like that going anywhere positive are just about zero. We here at Peerless are filling a needed niche, as the government has encouraged us to do, at the lowest possible price. Anyone can get health insurance that pays a higher portion, if not all of hospital costs, but insurance is like anything else: You get what you pay for.”
“What about arranging for me to have a talk with this esteemed CEO of yours? She’s the one who needs to have an idea of what she is doing to real people buying her policies.”
Ebony’s jaw dropped open in mock shock. “Now, that would be an interesting confrontation,” she choked out. “Let me tell you something: Heather Williams is riding the crest of a wave and doesn’t talk to mere mortals. I’m doing well with this job and I’m appreciated, but there is no way that even I could arrange to have a meeting with her. Even high-flying investment types often have to pay for her time.”
“She sounds charming,” Brian said sardonically, also remembering the security guard’s description.
“She’s a piece of work, no doubt about it. But she is extraordinarily good at what she does. I have to say we are all appreciative of the ride she’s engineered for us, especially with the employee stock she’s doled out to encourage company patriotism.”
Fifteen minutes later and more irritated and strung out than he ever remembered feeling, Brian left Ebony’s office. He felt as if he’d accomplished nothing. Reaching the empty Peerless lobby with its vacant reception desk, he collapsed onto one of the leather couches, wondering how much of the expensive piece of furniture his and Emma’s premiums had paid for. Adding insult to injury, he found himself staring again at the haughty foxhunting portrait.
A sudden clamor of voices at the far end of the long hallway caught his attention. A few moments later a throng of five people entered the room, heading for the door out to the elevators. Leading the pack was none other than the woman in the painting herself, perhaps having aged maybe five or ten years. In Brian’s estimation, she appeared to be maybe a year or two younger than Emma’s thirty-four. As she swept past with a determined, rapid gait, she glanced in his direction. For a moment a look of mild disdainful bewilderment flashed across her thin-lipped, carefully made-up face, but she didn’t slow down.
“Excuse me! Heather Williams?” Brian called out on a whim. “I need to talk to you. I think you’re in need of some moral advice.” His unplanned outburst surprised even himself, but it had the desired effect. The Peerless CEO came to a stop at the threshold of the lobby door that had been opened for her. She turned to treat Brian to a shocked but clearly contemptuous inspection.
“You are going to give me advice?” she questioned with a disbelieving tone. “Who the hell are you?” Her voice was shrill. She was obviously unaccustomed to being accosted by a stranger, especially in her own office. “Do you know it costs a thousand dollars a minute to talk with me?”
“That sounds like a bargain to me,” he said as he leaped to his feet. He wanted to take full advantage of this serendipitous encounter by looking at her eye to eye. “I was guessing more like two or three thousand at the very least.”
In spite of her obvious irritation, Heather laughed. Apparently, Brian’s mocking humor appealed to her narcissism. From the vantage point of his six-foot-one stature, he guessed she was somewhere around Emma’s five-eight but of much slighter build. What he didn’t expect was that his sudden standing up alarmed two of the four men in her entourage, including the one who had rushed ahead to open the lobby door. Both of these men were dressed in dark, ill-fitting suits and wearing prototypical aviator sunglasses. Instantly it occurred to Brian that the two older men were the bodyguards the building security guard had described.
As the two men started toward him, reaching under their lapels presumably for their firearms, Brian instinctively went for the P365 Sig Sauer nine-millimeter automatic pistol holstered in his waistband, which he carried religiously ever since he’d been a cop. Brian was a firearms expert par excellence, particularly with a handgun, which he had trained with on a regular basis and was fully licensed to carry. Luckily, in this instance, a potentially bad situation was averted by Heather, who snapped her hands out laterally to restrain her overeager escorts. Brian relaxed the fingers wrapped around his gun’s grip.
“I repeat: Who are you?” Heather demanded. “And what makes you possibly think you can give me advice?”
“I’m a very, very dissatisfied Peerless Health Insurance customer,” Brian answered. And then while poking his index finger accusatorily toward Heather’s face, he added: “You should be ashamed of yourself for designing and selling your worthless policies.”
Reacting to Brian’s possibly threatening hand gesture, the two bodyguards surged forward once more only to have Heather restrain them for the second time. There was little doubt that in his angered state he could more than handle these two mildly overweight, out-of-shape men who looked more like bouncers at a small-town bar than proper security personnel. In his aggravation, he would have actually enjoyed giving in to his bottled-up emotions and taking them down.