Holy Copays, Batman!

Ah, open enrollment. A time of chaos and despair PowerPoint and false statistics, and always some new advice from HR. Last year, HR advised employees that having children was expensive for the company. This year, I learned a lot more at the benefits presentation:

1. If providing a benefit to the employees does not cost money, then HR believes it cannot have value.

2. If providing a benefit to the employees does cost money, then scolding employees for using the benefit is the best way to reduce usage. Don’t listen to your doctor; make your own health care decisions.

3. Chiropractic care is useless, and could even cost more money because chiropractors could injure their patients. Stop making your own health care decisions.

4. It’s important to be an informed health care consumer, so try to understand your EOBs.

5. There are never errors or fraud in medical billing, so stop trying to understand your EOBs.

6. It’s important to HR to regain our trust, as long as that doesn’t involve improving benefits, treating employees like adults, or answering questions. So the bold new step HR has taken to regain our trust is to reduce our direct interactions with anyone who works for HR.

There are so many internal contradictions in their presentation, you can’t help but agree with something they say. But the most informative minute was before the presentation started, when we talked to one employee who works directly for HR and another employee who HR used in an intranet video presentation about the medical plans. They’re both on their spouse’s health insurance instead of this one.