Stick Your Head In The Box And Let It All Out

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Last week, Californians in Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and Santa Monica voluntarily stuck their heads in a white box to share their thoughts about healthcare.

The “chat boxes” are part of the “We (Shield) You” Campaign, which nonprofit Blue Shield designed to assess consumer dissatisfaction. People were invited to step up to a white box, put their head inside of a hole, and give their critique. Inside the box was a two-man film crew recording people’s comments, which will get shipped back to Blue Shield for review.

It’s about time we had a healthcare confessional.

A 2006 Harris Interactive poll, which found that consumers ranked health companies third lowest just above oil and tobacco, likely motivated the chat box campaign.
One 50-year-old woman, Nancy, went to Union Square in downtown San Francisco Friday to stick her head in the box on her way to visit her Medicaid-recipient father at a nearby hospital, and arrived just in time to see the film crew tearing down about an hour before the stated 5 p.m. end time. “This is just like Blue Shield to tell you one thing and then do another,” she said. While the film crew set everything back up to get her on film, Nancy told me, “What bothers me is all this business about pharmaceuticals. I mean, they make it impossible for average people to get medication. For somebody who makes $1,500 a month, I can’t afford $200, $300 or $400 a month for healthcare.”

A bike messenger from Chicago told the film crew Friday that she had been hit by a car three times and had to host fundraisers to come up with the cash she needed to cover costs. A 58-year-old massage therapist from New York said she and her husband have to pay $1,800 a month for a combined health plan, a fee based on their age, not physical health. A woman with a “compromised liver” said she wound up paying more than she should have for treatment because she was misdiagnosed by several doctors. Several people complained that Blue Shield had refused to cover them because of pre-existing health conditions.

Doug Biehn, the organization’s vice president of corporate marketing, said Blue Shield will “cherry pick” the best interviews and post them on blueshieldchatbox.com by the end of this month. By “best,” Biehn means funny and compelling stories that do not include swearing and do not defame Blue Shield or other health insurance brands. By that definition, Nancy’s critique of Blue Shield would not likely get posted.

Coincidentally, a lawsuit was filed last week against Blue Shield for reportedly canceling 300 policies in the past two years of people who reportedly became ill. No word on whether those folks showed up to talk in the box.

—Gary Moskowitz

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate