America Has Been Outsourced

Ever since manage care was introduced to America's health insurance industry; America's health insurance industry has been rapidly going down hill. And just when you thought it was "safe to go back in the water": outsourcing was introduced. Although in the beginning, outsourcing wasn't geared towards the health insurance industry, it wasn't long before health insurance conglomerates wised up and took advantage of this "outsourcing tool." And in doing so: putting millions of Americans out of work.

The countries America has outsourced a great deal of their business to are: India and the Philippines. In the beginning of this venture back in the early 80's, India was one of the first countries to get outsourced business. Although the insurance industry didn't get outsourced until only a few years ago. This was as they saying goes: "The straw that broke the camel's back" to the health insurance industry for Americans.

Customer service departments which once offered millions of positions to Americans, are no more. The reason being very simple: you need to pay at the very least $40,000 or so a month to keep around 20 American employees handling any insurance's customer service department/unit. How much do you need to pay to hire say 20 Indians to work a customer service unit? How much for around 20 Filipino's to handle the same customer service unit? Around 10-20 percent of the cost. Why outsourced? The answer is obvious.

Of course, to make things more customer-service-friendly to Americans: Indians and Filipinos have adopted American (English) sir-names. "Good morning this is Suzie how can I help you?" is what you'll get when calling one of these health insurances' phone numbers. Of course their Indian or Filipino accents give them away immediately. But not only are they doing their jobs fairly well, but they are also very submissive and take a great deal of abuse and insults from Americans customers; unlike their would be American counterparts which would probably hang up at the first outburst or insult from a customer, or transfer the call to a supervisor. Not only is outsourcing considerably less expensive to American companies, but to some degree: quite effective; since Indians and Filipinos will put up with a great deal more than Americans did/would have under the same conditions.

The downside to all this is: although these workers from these countries put up with a great deal; these workers from India and the Philippines don't know very much. Sometimes things as simple as zip-codes. They will ask questions like: "is the post office box the same as the physical address?" or other questions which most/many Americans know since elementary school, etc., etc....