Brilliant Ideas That Will Never Work: ugly glasses protest for better insurance

Optical coverage in the health insurance of absolutely everyone whose insurance details I know is insufficient. Every insurance plan I'm familiar with (which includes university employees, teachers, steelworkers, some hospital workers, and all levels of public service) pays a limited dollar amount, and many don't even cover the cost of lenses.

This is unacceptable. Insurance companies should - actually OHIP should - cover the actual cost of glasses (or, at the very least, lenses), not just "Oh, you need glasses, okay, here, have $200." But the problem is that because glasses are so important - we need to wear them on our faces, all the time, to see - people end up coughing up whatever it costs to get a decently functional and reasonably attractive pair of glasses.

But imagine for a moment if everyone stopped doing that. Everyone started buying only what was covered by their insurance. Ugly square plastic glasses abound - not the hipster kind, the kind you'd expect to see on a serial killer who's been in jail for 20 years. Everyone does without anti-glare and without sunglasses. Everyone who does have glasses is walking around with smudged lenses and crooked frames. Everyone whose doesn't have insurance coverage (or doesn't have enough coverage to buy even lenses) is walking around squinting unattractively, unable to drive if their licence has conditions.

That would certainly show the world how insufficient our insurance plans are, making the powers that be more willing to increase coverage for both the haves and the have nots. Unfortunately it will never work because no one who can possibly make the money work will be willing to make themselves blind and unattractive.