So – I’m not sure what I think about this. There’s plenty of things on which I hold firm, even outspoken, opinions. This is something that I think I’d like to know a bit more about, but don’t even know where to begin. Also, it’s not something that immediately effects me or mine so of course it’s a lower priority… I remember my freshman year of college. Orientation is what I’m thinking of specifically, and the tables set up in the courtyard of the Commons by different organizations and corporations that I imagine had paid for the privilege of being set up in the heart of a couple of hundred newly-free-from-their-parents mostly-18 year-olds. There were health clubs and credit card companies, the local bank and I don’t remember what-all else, but reading the “deals” being offered by most of these entities revealed a good deal of them to be downright predatory – especially the credit card companies.
Knowing that these young adults are finally able to sign contracts without their parents’ signature sitting next to theirs, in hindsight it seems like the college was really just packaging up their student body and throwing them to wolves that they’d invited through the gates. There were plenty of things that we were counseled on – mental health and finances and whatever else – but no-one was acting as an advocate as we were cornered, ram-rodded with information, cajoled and frankly just about coerced into signing into these programs… i.e. commodified.
That’s the way I remember it anyways. Nowadays I’m suspicious of anyone selling anything. Nowadays I’m always reading fine print and paranoid about EULAs and my legalese is actually quite advanced. Probably better than my French EVER was.
But 18 year-olds continue to be 18 year-olds and Corporate America continues to be Corporate America, and knowing to what depths a university or college will stoop to monetize their student body, it makes me very, very concerned that Aflack is sitting students down regularly in a local coffeehouse down the street from the University of Maryland, on the ground floor of one of their new dorms and trying to get them to sign up for private health insurance.
Yes – the ACA only works if young, healthy, glowing, shiny-coated yoots get on board with their own health insurance plans, but they also get to stick on their parents’ plans for well past the average students’ scholastic career – so I’m not quite sure who they’re selling to. At first I thought they were the chosen insurance company by the café, laying out benefit packages to the employees – and I thought it was just for a day. But it seems that there most days of the week for much of the day. I’m wondering if I should look a little further into what the Hell they’re doing there, why they’re not doing it on campus, who they’re targeting – and whether or not the café really knows what’s happening there.
What do you think? Am I just being paranoid? Hrm.
