Within days of starting my petition, over 2,400 people of faith signed on to tell Philadelphia Insurance that it's wrong to deny claims for life-saving addiction service providers.
And we had a big step forward: Two government investigations have now been opened on the insurance company!
Philadelphia Insurance is really starting to feel the pressure. They even flew in a team of lawyers from Chicago for a meeting with us and Massachusetts officials — just to tell us they will not accept responsibility under any circumstances.
They should say that directly to the hundreds struggling with opiate addiction who are dying in the waiting line for treatment beds. When they refused to pay a legitimate claim to rehabilitate a facility with hundreds of beds, they put hundreds of lives at risk.
Philadelphia Insurance should know better. They’ve contributed over $14 million in donations to charitable organizations, including disaster relief funds,1 and the company’s chairman, Jamie J. Maguire, Jr., sits on the board of multiple philanthropic foundations.2
Will you help us remind Mr. Maguire of his responsibility to care for the people of Boston by posting to Philly’s social media accounts? This will set off alarm bells in their Philadelphia office because they know customers and media will see our posts—we're even using their own hashtag, #ThinkPHLY.
Copy & paste, or write your own message on their Facebook wall:
I #ThinkPHLY knows better! Philadelphia Insurance: Put people first and #RestoreTheBeds to save lives in Massachusetts. http://bit.ly/1JJWCjU
Click to Tweet or write your own message:
I #ThinkPHLY knows better! @PHLYINS: Put people first & #RestoreTheBeds to save lives in Massachusetts. pic.twitter.com/jr4derNtGg
The Massachusetts government is doing what they can, but Philadelphia Insurance’s cooperation will help get the programs and services up faster if our non-profit organizations don’t have to fight their team of corporate lawyers.
In my faith tradition, we tell the story of the man lowered through the roof by his faithful friends to be healed by Jesus—doing whatever it takes to care for our most vulnerable fellow human beings. With a big groundswell of public pressure, we can push Philadelphia to do the right thing and start being part of the solution to get families and individuals the life-saving treatment and services they need.
In Solidarity,
Rev. John Edgerton
P.S. Didn’t see our powerful petition that got Massachusetts State officials to pay attention to Philadelphia Insurance’s selling out of those hoping to recover from opiate addiction? Click here to read the full story.
[1] Philadelphia Insurance Community Involvement.
[2] Philadelphia Insurance Executive Management.
GROUNDSWELL: Inspiring faithful action to heal and repair the world. We offer tools and resources for organizing online, and we find and share the best faithful content on the Web daily. Powered by Auburn Seminary.
475 Riverside Drive, Suite 1800
New York, New York 10115 United States
___________________________
___________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment