The point of it is to be catastrophic insurance for people who are basically healthy and don't expect to have to use it. Having it as the only choice makes no sense at all.

Unless you're looking at the bottom line at the corporate level for a huge multi-national - from those seats it makes all kinda sense. In a "We don't actually care about you as human beings, we're required to provide a minimum, so that's what we'll do, and it's good enough that you still wouldn't get federal assistance if you decided to see if you could do better with the Affordable Care Act," kind of way.

I can haz fresh, good tasting water!!

The water here is private well, super hard and full of iron. But not anymore! And they're going to come back and insulate/heat tape the pipes.

We have an FSA program in my office and I signed up for it the first year. I was going to have to have cataract surgery and figured it would wipe out everything I could save. Well, it didn't, so I was left with a good-sized account to spend (you have to spend it by the end of your plan year ... which meant everyone participating was spending as much of what was in the account at the end). The drawback I found was that if there was one transaction they questioned, the card became unusable until you'd cleared it up. I was stuck about two weeks before the deadline with one thing they wouldn't approve because I couldn't get the receipts/proof to them - I tried mailing and, when I was ready to scan and email it, the item had disappeared from my account ... but they were still not letting me use the card. Took a while to get it cleared up.

Mine is a high deductible PPO. Locals have the choice of an HMO, but remote employees do not. There is a difference in deductibles. Mine is $3000 for a single, $6000 for a family. HMO is slightly less. Company makes things easier by paying 75% of the premium, and contributing half of the deductible. I can also roll over any of the unused deductible funds year over year, though I will always have $500 in the game. As these things go, I'm pretty lucky.

Any Boston/NH-istas and Chicago-istas in need of a good job, let me know. IT is hiring (Theodosia?), and there a number of admin/ops positions available.

I can haz fresh, good tasting water!!

Hooray! I take it you didn't have to sell your soul to do it?

Remains to be seen. But they did leave me an 80lb bag of salt.

Timelies all!

Weird thing happened yesterday. I came home from work and there was a grocery bag with chips, doughnuts and some sort of a root vegetable in it sitting in front of our door. No note, so I have no idea where it came from. I left it out there in case someone came back for it, but no one has. I don't know what to do about it, since it's not ours, and I don't want it. I guess I'll toss the items.

But they did leave me an 80lb bag of salt.

Will that be enough to do the windows as well as the doors?

But they did leave me an 80lb bag of salt.

Nice.