An Interesting Solicitation

Warning: The views expressed in this blog may be considered inflammatory toward certain people groups. Reader discretion is advised.

I received a call from Lakeside Hospital yesterday evening. For those of you who do not know, Lakeside is the newest hospital in the Alegent health system and opened a couple of years ago. They pride themselves on being state of the art, and providing a “entirely new approach to health care”. The very nice woman on the other line started out by saying that this was not a billing call, or for any other emergency (thank the Lord), but wanted to talk about a campaign they were having. This in and of itself is not surprising, and I figured it was a wellness campaign of some sort. Well I was wrong. The very nice women proceeded to explain that the new hospital was going through some renovations to expand the rooms in its cardiac care unit, blah, blah, blah. She then asked me if I would be willing to support their cause and donate $50 per quarter for the next 3 years ($600 for those of you who don’t like math). This took me a little off guard, but I replied no. The very nice woman then asked for $25 per quarter, with the same answer. Finally the very nice woman asked if I would make a one time contribution. Same answer. This was about the time where I was getting ready to go off on the very nice lady, but then the very nice lady asked the perfect lead in question…Why? This was great. For those of you who don’t know there are three industries that leave a bad taste in my mouth: Health Care (sorry Katie), Insurance (specifically health, but sorry anyway Dave, Carey and Kate), and Law (sorry Dan). For those of you thinking Politics that is a close fourth, but hasn’t made my list yet. This is not to say that everyone involved in these industries are bad, I know that is not the case, but this is my chance as a blogger to write in broad strokes across subjects that I really don’t know all the intimate details. What I do know is that almost every time I have to deal with someone in these industries, I come away angry….not good. Back to the story, I proceed to tell the very nice lady that I think it is wrong that they are trying to solicit money from known patients and that the outrageous amounts of money that they charge people for using their facility should be enough to cover all of their expenses including the expansion of their own hospital….in so many words. Of course I did this all with God’s love in mind….well not really, but I wish I had. All of you know that I am a pretty calm person so you know that I didn’t go off on the very nice lady too much, but I was direct and the very nice lady understood my position when the conversation ended. We both wished each other a good night, and that was that.

By the way check out pictures from this labor day weekend here.