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The Claims Denial Department at The Health Insurance Company Is Out Sick Today

Ray Katz
5 min readDec 26, 2024

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Fiction that opens up possibilities in the real world.

Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash

It has been my contention that the most significant factor that keeps our civilization on a path towards total self-annihilation is insufficient imagination. We don’t see possibilities and even when we get a glimpse of one, our first reaction is “that will never happen,” when it should be “how can we make this work?”

The department that evaluates insurance claims was sick again. The whole department. It was Monday, and way too many people were not at their desks. They were at cafes and even wine bars, playfully drafting “notes from their doctors.”

This had been going on for some time. It was getting to be a problem for the only people who mattered—shareholders.

Oh, work hadn’t stopped. It’s just that those who worked in that department were taking time for themselves at the start of every week. The other four days, they were at their desks, approving ALL claims without exception.

Meetings were called. People were chewed out. Some were fired. Yet, the new people who were brought in behaved the same as those they replaced. This was getting out of hand.

Co-ops and Communities

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Ray Katz
Ray Katz

Written by Ray Katz

Internet pioneer. But I’m most interested in stabilizing the Earth’s climate and promoting our common humanity. WeAreSaners.org

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