Financial Fitness

We Didn't Pay A Dime For Health Care For 8 Years

How?

Well, that's just how good Microsoft's health benefits are (or for us, were).

Last Saturday we spent 3 hours going through the health benefits with new employer.

Pretty much signed up for the same coverage, but well look at that, we now have a $130 cost each paycheck (covers both of us) plus a $20 co-pay per event.

Ah, well, having gone the last 8 years without paying for anything (except extra infertility procedures over the cap and a root canal/crown procedure over the cap), we really can't complain.

It'll be weird though now having a co-pay and paying for any prescriptions.

We actually toyed with the idea of going the Health Savings Account w/High Deductible Plan route, since we are pretty healthy and could absorb any resulting costs in our normal cash flow, but chickened out at the last minute and stuck with a PPO plan.

A PPO is what we had at Microsoft, but the difference with new employer is that we have that co-pay and plan cost.

Hey I'm not complaining about either cost structure.

Microsoft does know the psychological benefit to paying for the full health care costs, and it's not lost on them: They tout it as a key benefit and key component of the pay package.

But at the end of the day you still have to compare full compensation, of which this is just one of many components (a key one, but still, just one component), when determining what your number is for taking an external offer.

posted by finance girl @ 8:54 AM