a gift from the wise men

Jimbo has made mention, on occasion, that he is a working man. I’ve discussed my business travels, but I haven’t delved very deeply into my workday experiences. One reason I have stayed away from the subject of my employment is that I read early on about bloggers who commented negatively on their place of employ and were shown the door by management where they worked. I have a crappy job, just like most of the rest of you, but it keeps half of the food on Jimbo’s girlfriend’s table, so I didn’t want to take the chance of getting canned and not knowing where the next half of my meal was coming from.

The hell with that. Today it is work related and it is serious.

When I first came to the place I’m working, the Human Resources Manager told me the health insurance wasn’t very good, but she hoped we’d have something better next year.

They gave us the forms last week for enrollment in the health insurance plan. I noticed the premiums were going up, but it seemed a modest increase compared to the horror stories I had heard about companies suspending their plans or seriously ramping up their employees’ premiums. They sent some lady from the head office in today to explain our package and answer our questions about the plan. I would learn in that meeting that our premiums actually have gone down. This was sort of a new concept for me. My parents taught me that when you pay a certain amount for something and then the price is increased, that the cost of that item has gone up. I found out today that when your insurance premium increases, it means the premium for your insurance has gone down. Had I understood this concept better, it would have better helped me to understand why the price of gasoline went down so appreciably right after the twin hurricanes this fall.

Anyway, the premium increase—er, decrease—wasn’t that dramatic and I was fat and happy. That is, however, until they explained that our $250 deductible will now be $1400, and that our prescription co-pays will not go into effect until our deductible is met. For a family plan, the deductible is $2800. I work with a guy who is a single father of two and he was particularly concerned about the change. Because of the extra insurance cost, he and I and all of our fellow employees will be taking a dramatic pay cut at the first of the year. I guess this is our Christmas gift from the wise men that run our company. It reminded me of a little ditty I wrote last year around the Christmas season, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to link it. The link is below, with the caveat that it is a tad long.



http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2004/12/gift-of-magi.html


Well, there you have it, along with all the best to the guys who messed up what little good health insurance I had. We wish them all a Merry Christmas, here in Jimbo’s world.