Merry Death

No One to Blame

I didn't get health insurance.

I was laid of on March 2nd and received a severance pay through June 15th. On June 30th, my health insurance ended. I am now eligible for COBRA. Which is a whopping $1,048 a month compared to my previous premium of $75 a month. Its good for 6 months at $1048 each month. What a great deal. That's more than 2 weeks pay at my previous employer.

I decided to go back to work at Starbucks thinking it would be easy to get insurance due to the GREAT policy of giving benefits to hourly employees at 20 hrs per week. It's been 2 months and I needed a to work 160 hrs to get approved for health insurance. I have done that. I checked with HR and Payroll on a constant basis to make sure I was on track to meet the 160 hr goal.

Somewhere the communication broke down. Payroll told me that I had 60 days from month to month. I started on June 1, so by July 31st, I would need to accumulate the 160 hrs. Wrong. Hr tells me that its PAID days. So my last check was paid to me a week ago, next check not until Aug 7. So those hours aren't PAID in July. In order to qualify for the next 2 month window, I would have to work 81 hours in 2 weeks. With a 1 yr old, that's just not possible.

It appears now that I will have to pay out of pocket for health insurance. Since I had some PPD (post partum depression) that was treated with Zoloft, I am now considered "clinically depressed" which raises my premiums through the roof. Forget that it was only for 4 months. I am still broken in the eyes of the insurance companies. So we are looking at $300-400 a month.

Kill me, kill me now.

posted by Metalmeredith @ 10:53 AM