Human Life in the 21st Century

Chapter I

M’Clintock

On Tuesday October 12th Ted arrives in San Diego in the evening. He has been sent by his company, Human Life, to this city in California that he‘s never visited before. Ted checks into a hotel at which his supervisor, Mr. Lee G. Park, CEO of Human Life, made (of course, one of Mr. Park’s many secretaries actually did it) reservations. Mr. Park has requested that Ted  “see about” a person insured by the new Human Life Health Care Division. She has been found to have a very rare type of tumor. According to Park, this type of tumor is extremely difficult to treat and is highly likely to be fatal.

Ted, as vice president in charge of client communications for both the straight Life, and the new Health Care Division, has been coached personally by Mr. Park on an initiative that Park said the company might possibly employ in the future. Park explained that this initiative will be appropriate for actual use only with a select few of the health insurance clients, and not at all with the life insurance ones.

Park wants to try it out cautiously and without anyone else knowing. He’s entrusting this very first effort to Ted. Park ‘s explained that after Ted has carried out this investigation, he and Ted can decide together if this type of effort has usefulness in saving HL money.

“For example”, Park had said,  “getting a client with a very hard-to-treat medical diagnosis to choose hospice rather than all those very expensive experimental treatments the MDs are always playing with and then trying to get us to pay for.”  Ted had wondered if it was ethical to persuade against such treatments, but had said nothing. After all, Mr. Park was just sending him to investigate the feasibility of a new initiative.

For this first try, Park said he’d done all the groundwork.  The particular insured had been diagnosed with a rare cancer, for which the costs of treatment and medical care could mount rapidly into the hundreds of thousands. There was very little medical experience with it, and chances were that all those treatments would leave the patient with nothing like a reasonable life. Worst of all it would tie the company down to payments for complications of the treatments.

The name of the client was Lucille Ridgeway. Park instructed Ted to “use your charms” to get Ms. Ridgeway’s confidence and learn about her habits. Most important was whether she knew anything about her diagnosis. If so, how much? All of this could be important as far as HL’s position on paying for future care for Lucille Ridgeway’s desmoplastic dysgerminoma. Park had checked out her job (Teaching Psychology at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, PhD. Assistant Professor, unmarried, 34 years old), and where she was going in San Diego (address of aunt, also a Ridgeway, with whom she was to stay).

Park had reserved a first class seat on a flight to San Diego on Tuesday October 12, as Ms. Ridgeway was to arrive there that day. “ You’re on the late flight so you’ll get there after she does.”  Park then said he expected Ted  back for the Human Life Executive Board meeting Thursday, October 21. Ted mustn’t mention this trip to anyone, and above all, he mustn’t let the client know he has anything to do with Human Life.