South Burlington cartoonist Harry Bliss, whose art appears in the New Yorker, Seven Days and several best-selling children’s books, found a new subject to illustrate for Vermonters — the woebegone Vermont Health Connect.
In an eight-minute video posted to his Facebook page, Bliss entertains himself while being left on hold by representatives of the state-run health exchange. He had requested a printed invoice five months earlier, to no avail.
The customer service representative sometimes interrupts Bliss to explain that his problem isn’t as urgent as some other people’s. “We have thousands of these,” she says. “Thousands.”
“This actually makes me want to kill myself,” he says while enduring some unspeakably bad elevator music, and holds a knife to his wrist and neck. The video also features some sweet dance moves, a sheep puppet and … Well, see for yourself.
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Hilarious!!! Been there. Still there…!
Bawling laughing so hard, Harry I love you, Are you married ? absolutely hilarious!! yes same issue here, 10 people called me all saying “she did what” .this is the best!!
If this was not such a sad pathetic reality it would be funny.. pathetic
And we plan to give Shumlin 2 to 3 billion dollars to create a single payer system. This will be the only way Vermonters get their health care.
It is as if they took the 71 to 80 million spent so far rolled it and smoked it. Shumlin is the “Peter Principle” embodied in the flesh. Take what could be a good idea and destroy everything about it. while demanding more and more money to not accomplish the task. It boggles my mind , and I have changed my mind that this state Government is capable of doing anything more than burning through huge piles of cash.
Thank you for the laugh today! I really needed that. It is always good to be reminded to not take life to seriously. Good luck with vt health connect!
Only thing that worked for me was writing to the governor and the secretary of health. . . I’m glad they took the system down. What an incredibly horrible process VHC has been from the beginning. And the wasted money. Terrible.
I like Bliss’ cartoons. But he comes across as a douche bag here. The call center worker, underpaid and overworked, is trying her best to do her job. She has no power to fix a flawed system. Yet he’s giving her a very hard time, recording and broadcasting the call (while not illegal, still pretty creepy) and she is showing real grace in handling his tirade. We get it — the website is broken. The State hired incompetent vendors. And yes, it is very frustrating when you can’t change from receiving your monthly invoice by mail to receiving them by email. But you know what: even without an invoice, he can still send in his payment by check in the mail (he doesn’t claim to not know the premium amount or his account number. All he has to do is put those on his check, and mail it in and he’s good to go). Meanwhile, there are Vermonters coping with real problems with securing coverage — including refugees facing a confusing set of conflicting eligibility criteria. So, draw your cartoons, speak out to your lawmakers and to the elected officials responsible for fixing this system, but don’t dump on the front-line workers. Oh, and the part where he jokes about wanting “to kill myself” — not cool and not funny, Harry.
I like Bliss’ cartoons. But he comes across as a bit douchey here. The call center worker, underpaid and overworked, is trying to do her job. She has no power to fix a very flawed system. Yet he’s giving her a very hard time, recording and broadcasting the call (while not illegal, still pretty creepy) and she is showing grace in handling his tirade. (I do agree, ‘though, that ‘others have things worse than you’ is never a good thing tact for a customer service rep. As apple tech support people are trained, express some empathy about the customer’s problem and then focus on what, if anything, you can actually do). We get it — the website is broken. The State hired massively incompetent vendors. And yes, it is very frustrating when you can’t make a simple change, such as from receiving your monthly invoice by electronically to receiving them by email. But I suspect that even without an invoice, Mr. Bliss can still send in his monthly payment by check in the mail (he doesn’t claim to not know the premium amount or his account number. I expect that if he put those on his check, and mails it in, he’ll be good to go and can get back to cartooning). Meanwhile, there are Vermonters coping with real problems with securing coverage — including refugees facing a confusing set of conflicting eligibility criteria. So, draw your cartoons, speak out to your lawmakers and to the elected officials responsible for fixing this system, but don’t publicly dump on the front-line workers. Oh, and the joking about suicide — not funny and not cool.
I wonder if he got an invoice. We finally started getting them. The last one was due Sept. 30 but they robocalled and said it was actually due Sept 26.