We've just been royally screwed by my husband's employer and health insurance co.

[LiberalEsto]

33. Regarding the prescriptions, I'm already on generics for everything

but without the co-pay system, prescriptions for 4 generics for 90 days still adds up. With the co-pays last year, I paid $56 for a 90-day mail-order supply of 4 generic prescriptions; now it will be closer to $300.

I'm sure the HSAs have some advantages, mostly for employers and insurance companies, but the problem is that there has to be money in them. We don't have an HSA yet.

We were blindsided by this change, and missed the Dec. 6 deadline for opening an HSA account at a particular bank, simply because my husband did not know about it. He is busy working his butt off, like I said, early mornings and late evenings and weekends as well as his usual 10-hour work days.

From what we read in the on-line info, which we saw yesterday for the first time, if he'd opened the HSA by 12/6 the company would have deposited $500 into it as starter money, and then added $500 more, bit by bit in the rest of the year's pay periods. I don't know if that can be done now.

He also found out that the other three people working on his group project all opted out of this health plan because the deductible is so high. They went on their spouses' health plans instead.