I opened my health insurance billing statement for our company this morning and this printed notice was included (on thick, green card stock):
WE HEARD YOU and WE'RE GOING GREEN!
In response to feedback from our customers, our commitment to environmental stewardship, and our desire to hold down costs, we are eliminating the duplicate courtesy copy of your billing statement effective September 2007.
We need your help to make this change successful!
To ensure your payments continue to be properly applied, please be sure to send us a copy of your billing statement along with your payment.
We will continue to include a cover sheet on top of the bill to ensure protected health information is not visible through the envelopes because through a cost comparison study, we found it is four times more economical to use a paper cover sheet rather than using security envelopes.
Thank you for giving us feedback and for helping us help the environment and hold down costs.
This month the only thing they did not include as they always have was the 2-page copy of the billing statement. THE ONE THEY WANT ME TO COPY AND RETURN.
Not only are they not cutting back on any paper usage, they are including a note PRINTED ON CARDSTOCK to announce they are proud of "going green"! What a joke. Give me a fucking break! I'd laugh if this weren't so pathetic. The only thing they are "committed to" is saving themselves the cost of printing and mailing the remittance copy they now require their customers to send instead.
Idiots. Who also increased our premiums this month by over 20%.
I think I'm going to be sick. Oh, wait ~ that'll cost me too.
11 comments:
The Health Care industry . . . I don't know if they are bigger criminals than the credit card companies or the energy companies or the military industrial complex . . .
There are a lot of criminals running this economy.
Great Post. Funny that they didn't send the one thing they wanted back. Dumbasses.
I might not have been clear. I didn't mean funny . . . I know that they just want you to take the form and copy it yourself, using the energy of your copy machine with your own paper . . .
because they are a bunch of cheap pricks.
and care nothing for the environment
Pharmaceutical executives own our asses.
I really think certain aspects of the French Revolution should be vogue: public executions of corrupt "rulers" - in this case - executives and bottom-line board of directors.
They want GREEN? Send them a bunch of mold.
Okay - I'm avoiding homework and must depart for different parts of the internets.
Your health care/insurance company may not be the best example of corporations going green, but there are many, many good examples of companies that are stepping up and doing their bit to reduce, reuse, recycle, etc.
In fact, several years ago, a group of folks got together and created the Common Vision for Transforming the Paper Industry that resulted in organizations like Metafore. The latter is a group of companies that have committed to reducing paper consumption. Some are doing a better job than others and many are making positive strides.
As for going green, many corporations are being told by shareholders that environmental stewardship and greening are important to them and companies are complying.
Anyway--all that to say, sure, there's some green washing going on out there, but there are also companies that are making sincere, solid efforts. And largely because we--their customers / consumers--demand it! FWIW...
Recycling paper isn't that big a deal, even if they were reducing usage.
There's a Penn and Teller Bullshit on recycling and Aluminum is the only consumer product worth the effort.
Good call on public executions, Sideon. We could wear raincoats like we're at a Gallager show.
I signed up with a card company to pay my bill online inlieu of getting a monthly bill, the inserts, and envelop that I dont' want or need.
So now they send me a paper notice, inside an envelop telling my bill is avaliable on line.
Jesus, Mother Mary these people are idiots.
LOL Cele! If you hadn't mentioned it, I would never have thought such stupidity were possible. I've been fixin' to go green by paying all my bills online and it's really going to piss me off if my small contribution to the planet is defeated by corporate lunacy.
This corporate greening charade must be the latest bandwagon to jump on...yesterday we got a flyer through our postbox saying that for every house this particular real estate agency sold, they would plant a tree to offset carbon emissions produced by that house. I thought, "Hey, all well and good, but how about planting another few thousand trees to offset the paper production for these flyers you've blanketed South London with!" Blah!
Have they not heard of email and internet banking? - that would be making a real effort.
We have several of the companies we do business with bill us by email or phone text and then we pay online.
LMAO! I love this kind of crap! Just the other day I received an insert in my garbage bill saying that waste management's landfills have provided over 17,000 acres of wildlife habitat.
My first thought was "How sad that animals are living in landfills which are now certified and protected by the Wildlife Habitat Council." and my second thought was "I wonder what kinds of birth defects and problems this causes?" I mean, I know it's not a nucleur waste dump but I'm not entirely sure this is something to be proud of, ya know?
Yay for "going green" and "thinking green"... I guess.
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