My love-hate relationship with my health insurance provider continues apace.

I’m kidding, of course. Love has nothing to do with it.

The purpose of health insurance is to provide coverage in the event of a medical event, such as illness or injury. Obviously, for health insurance providers it is an expensive undertaking. In consequence, providers promote preventative medicine to improve their bottom line—oops, I mean to improve their customers’ wellness. This is laudable—unless and until it becomes counterproductive to their purported reason for existence: the insured’s health.

To incentivize the insured to participate in preventative medicine, my health insurance provider offers online events and incentives. For example: an event offers online sessions to raise awareness and provide assistance regarding a healthcare issue. As for an incentive, if within a specified period a customer attains sufficient “points” for daily performing and tracking certain “healthy habits” and/or answering a daily pair of statements and/or questions, the insured will receive a rebate on their premiums.

Given the pluralism of my company’s customers, the health insurance provider’s proposed and promoted events and assistance can prove an inexact science, even in the alleged age of AI algorithmic exactitude. Often, I am invited to attend or learn more about alcohol and nicotine cessation, despite the fact I do not drink or smoke; and I am frequently strafed by inane leftist DIE (“diversity, inclusivity, and equity”) statements and/or questions that seem to be written by an uber woke corporate human resources vice president, despite the fact I am not a corporate employee compelled to endure such gibberish.

Still, for the sake of the rebate, I abide—granted through gritted teeth. I have long been inured to these faceless leftists forcing their imbecilic, collectivist secular DIE religion upon the great, dirty unwashed like me. Yet, what continues to rankle is the illogic of being incentivized to engage in a “healthy” exercise that is counterproductive to my well-being. Again, one supposes the purpose of incentivizing preventative medicine is to make people healthier. But is this really the health insurance provider’s goal? Or is it to cloak political science in the garb of medical science to promote a leftist agenda?

To wit:

Given it is the height of the political silly season, I recently awoke to find on my health insurance provider’s website the following event: “Election Stress and Your Mental Well-being.” Evidently, among the ostensibly mature adults inhabiting our free republic, a health crisis burgeons: citizens are experiencing cognitive and emotional difficulty dealing with a common civic occurrence and its outcome. In fact, “coping” with voting induces such angst, one may be compelled to retreat to the succor of cyberspace counseling to learn how to talk to family and friends about the election; and to otherwise “learn strategies to help manage stress and anxiety that elections can bring.”

My first response was “Really?” In my case, the healthcare provider was over a decade late for my peak election stress—and even as a candidate, I never needed help to deal with it. You win; you lose; real life goes on. But then empathy struck me.

We live in a period of time where segments of both sides of the political spectrum are convinced this election will determine the fate of “our democracy” and “free republic.” And both sides’ operatives and candidates will spend over a billion dollars offering “fear itself” to drive their supporters to the polls and/or drop boxes.

While the deliberate creation and propagation of such angst has long been a staple of our political campaigns, perhaps the advent of the communications revolution that incessantly and instantaneously inundates individuals with paranoia and negativity explains the reason why my health insurance provider offered their “election stress” event. I felt a tinge of compassion for those who need such assistance; and hoped it would help them, regardless of their political persuasion. After all, in this chaotic age we Americans are in this together; and we must transcend it together.

This salubrious instance of political ecumenism proved evanescent. On my screen appeared:

“Be Intersectional. Daily Tip • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. 20 Points. Have you heard of the term intersectionality?

“It’s a way to think about all the parts of your identity and how they interact. These can include your: Age, Gender identity, Sexual orientation, Race or ethnicity, Religion, Abilities, Citizenship, Social class.

“Everyone has many social identities. Combined, they inform how you move through the world. They also affect any privilege you have. And the oppression you may face.”

Thanks, health insurance provider. Your counterproductive mission is again accomplished. My blood pressure is up, as is my loathing for those who prioritize politics above all else, including others’ health; and who, in their onanistic virtue signaling, delude themselves—if no one else—that their selfishness magically renders them morally superior.

So, my health insurance provider may need to add some virtual beds to your “election stress” event. Rebate or not, you can bet your bottom dollar we mass of great, dirty un-woked will continue to be an “election stressor” for the Left’s anxious authoritarians’ bent upon imposing their divisive, disordered ideology into our lives.

There. Now I feel better.

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An American Greatness contributor, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) served Michigan’s 11th Congressional District from 2003-2012 and served as Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee. Not a lobbyist, he is a frequent public speaker and moderator for public policy seminars; and a Monday co-host of the “John Batchelor Radio Show,” among sundry media appearances.