Hubbie came home from work today with a letter that has me seeing red. It’s from his employer. We’re already hard pressed with their insurance right now because the deductible went up $1200 to $4200 but they’re still only putting $3000 in the HSA which is supposed to cover our out of pocket medical expenses; and hubbie hasn’t had a raise in two years.

A few weeks ago we got a letter from BCBS, the health insurance company, saying that as of October 2010 they were doing away with our specific insurance plan but would be coming up with something comparable and all sorts of other things which were supposed to placate us. I tried to be hopeful that this would mean we might get an insurance plan that didn’t have a ludicrous deductible and maybe even cost less out of paycheck.

However what we’ve gotten is a horribly condescending memo letting us know that in these tough economic times we can’t expect for them to get a raise and that the insurance plan is changing so the family deductible will as of October 2010 be $5000 but we’re still only going to get $3000 in the HSA. However we’re more than welcome to contribute our funds into the HSA as allowed by the Federal Government and that contribution would be $60 per week (not per paycheck) so $240 a month and then it would be covered. I’m lucky to be able to squeeze $25 a MONTH into our savings account let alone $240, especially if they’re not giving hubbie a raise.

This is ridiculous. It’s like they’re actually docking him pay. Well, they are docking him pay because somehow we have to come up with $1200 to cover expenses out of pocket for medicine. I’m at least on generic medications now, but any time I sit on the doctor’s exam table is $230, and one of hubbie’s prescriptions is $78 and another over $100. We’re barely making it as it is, even though I’ve reduced some of our credit card bills, picking up hubbie’s $78 prescription, he’s been endeavoring to do without the more expensive medication, and allowing for a random expense to pop up…hasn’t been working. This month AAA automatically deducted our bill from them and we had to cover the surprise expense of Nimue going to the vet, and the only way we could afford to pay the rest of our proper bills was having Kore buy the last two batches of groceries AND front some Christmas presents for us, which are deducted off her rent, and this was WITH hubbie actually getting holiday pay on his last two checks. It’s ridiculous. They’ve done away with overtime and the police department is two men short and has been for sixteen months, and we don’t even get a cost of living raise, no wonder we’re not making it.

I find it hard to believe that there are absolutely no other insurance plans they could find.

The piece de resistance of the memo was that the last page was a $10 coupon towards membership at Sam’s Club, which could purportedly save us $200 a month on groceries. The closest Sam’s Club is almost an hour away. Ridiculous!