Friday, February 09, 2007

Why my child will NEVER go to public school

Reason #1 (in no particular order of importance)

Something is seriously wrong with an education system that turns out people who can't even use a calculator to calculate an insurance co-pay. That's math in real life and apparently, the schools in this country can't even teach students how to do it.

This is the kind of math that schools should be teaching students. Maybe then they'd have a decent shot at distinguishing between a good insurance plan and a total ripoff. Honestly, there should be a math class called Insurance Math 101 ... although I doubt that "insurance math" actually follows any mathematical laws. Trying to figure out how the insurance company comes up with its numbers is mind numbing. But I digress ...

At the pediatrician's office last week, the receptionist tried to calculate what my 20 percent co-pay would be for the visit. She repeatedly tried to tell me that 20 percent of $324 was $259.20. I could see what she was entering into the calculator ... $324 minus 20 percent.

She was flustered and I was trying to stay calm while praying that my son wouldn't start the launch sequence for meltdown. I had to tell her what to enter into the calculator to come up with $64.80, which is 20 percent of $324. Do you know how I reached that amount? Would you know how to enter it into a calculator? Please tell me you do.

Stay tuned for more random instances of stupidity ...

1 comment:

Mary Ellen said...

That's so sad it's funny. I wonder how many parents have been ripped off from her.