I was told by a coworker to, and I quote, “have faith in our leadership” and stop worrying so much about layoffs. His ignorance and overall idiocy made my head hurt. Have faith in our leadership??? Has he looked at any of their recent decisions? Who sane would have faith in such leadership?
18 replies (most recent on top)
Not looking good for RMAP. By the way, RMAP is deemed equivalent to HCA silver high deductible.
Employee + Spouse, HPSP:
Monthly cost COBRA: $1,664
Monthly cost RMAP: $2,586
Calendar-year deductible COBRA (individual/family) in-network: $2,000/$3,000
Calendar-year deductible RMAP (individual/family) in-network: $4,000/$6,000
Calendar-year deductible COBRA (individual/family) out-of-network: $3,000/$4,500
Calendar-year deductible RMAP (individual/family) out-of-network: $4,000/$6,000
In the following, OOPM = out-of-pocket max
Calendar-year OOPM COBRA (individual/family) in-network: $3,000/$4,500
Calendar-year OOPM RMAP (individual/family) in-network: $6,000/$8,550
Calendar-year OOPM COBRA (individual/family) out-of-network: $4,000/$6,000
Calendar-year OOPM RMAP (individual/family) out-of-network: $6,800/$10,200
(percentage is your share)
Office visit COBRA in-network: 10%
Office visit RMAP in-network: 20%
Office visit COBRA out-of-network: 30%
Office visit RMAP out-of-network: 40%
On and on it goes. RMAP does include coverage for hospice and home healthcare.
Not looking good for RMAP. By the way, RMAP is deemed equivalent to HCA silver high deductible.
Employee + Spouse, HPSP:
Monthly cost COBRA: $1,664
Monthly cost RMAP: $2,586
Calendar-year deductible COBRA (individual/family) in-network: $2,000/$3,000
Calendar-year deductible RMAP (individual/family) in-network: $4,000/$6,000
Calendar-year deductible COBRA (individual/family) out-of-network: $3,000/$4,500
Calendar-year deductible RMAP (individual/family) out-of-network: $4,000/$6,000
In the following, OOPM = out-of-pocket max
Calendar-year OOPM COBRA (individual/family) in-network: $3,000/$4,500
Calendar-year OOPM RMAP (individual/family) in-network: $6,000/$8,550
Calendar-year OOPM COBRA (individual/family) out-of-network: $4,000/$6,000
Calendar-year OOPM RMAP (individual/family) out-of-network: $6,800/$10,200
(percentage is your share)
Office visit COBRA in-network: 10%
Office visit RMAP in-network: 20%
Office visit COBRA out-of-network: 30%
Office visit RMAP out-of-network: 40%
On and on it goes. RMAP does include coverage for hospice and home healthcare.
RMAP is 55% higher than Cobra? Show me the data, with side by side comparison of benefits and cost.
Having said that.....I do agree that RMAP should be cheaper. BUT......for similar coverage on ACA/Healthcare.gov, you pay a similar monthly rate or higher. I've done the homework and lived with both plans. The only advantage that ACA has is that you might qualify for incentives, which lowers the monthly rate.
Just for grins, I took ACA healthcare last year to try out. Yes, it was WAY cheaper than RMAP because I got incentives, but I took a Bronze plan (bottom barrel plan). But the healthplan totally sucked.....lost ALL my doctors, and so did my wife, and we couldn't get healthcare out of state (only limited ER emergency support). And finding new doctors was an even bigger problem.....most docs listed on the plan didn't accept it. I had to call dozens of doctors to finally find one that would take me. Even when I checked plans in the Gold category, many of my doctors wouldn't support it. So, I'm back on RMAP this year, plus I owned the US govt some of those incentives back. It's all based on your gross income which you have to estimate 1 year in advance when applying for ACA.
And for the person that mentioned ~$1mil as coverage costs for a lifetime.....you aren't factoring Medicare at 65. My wife just went on Medicare this year, and it is WAYYY cheaper than RMAP, for WAYYY better coverage. Medicare is awesome so far.
...with no access to a doctor...
In Massachusetts, which is ranked as having some of the best health care in the US, legally the nursing home is the primary care provider which means when you can't see the nursing home doctor (who is rarely on site as they service many homes) you also can't bring in an outside doctor to help you even if you can afford it. Even getting diagnostic care from an on site nurse is almost impossible. Your only chance at real medical care is not dying on the way to the hospital when you can't be revived on site. That short one way ambulance ride is over $4,000.
There are boutique health care providers (including certain floors of Boston, MA hospitals) where you can get both the best care and security that includes preventing access by the less than elite doctors at the hospital, but that's billionaire/royalty money - no insurance involved.
It should be noted that Libertarian US Senator Rand Paul, even with health insurance, chose to pay full fair at a private facility in Canada rather than face US health care.
...so in the end you need more than $1 million for health care???
Yes. Yes we do. Talking with a dietician for less than an hour on one of RMAP's best plans comes with a near $500 copay.
The US also has something called "long term care" which is not covered by normal insurance. Cisco got us to buy into to a specialized insurance plan "that would always be there" until the company providing the insurance cancelled it a few years later. You're looking at $140,000+/yr to be warehoused in a shared room with no access to a doctor and food you wouldn't feed to an animal that licks its own bottom, and that's in a fairly Podunk community. In a real city with actual building codes the price is far higher.
@1eph+1lKGnkNt, I can only speculate why it's so pricey. They want to discourage you from taking it, yet say they offer it? Didn't use to be so much higher.
The employee plus family rates are really eye-watering: PPO about $4,200/month, HPSP about $3,600/month. (under 65)
ELT could afford it, I suppose. But the company would probably pay for them.
If you want to cover your spouse and you're both under 65, you're looking at about $3,000/month for PPO and about $2,500/month for HPSP.
After retirement, you Americans need to pay $3,000/month for health insurance???
With a worst-case life expectancy of 90 years, you need to pay (90-65)12$3,000 = $900,000 for health insurance? The insurance will not pay everything (deductible, co-pay, etc), so in the end you need more than $1 million for health care???
@1rim+1lKGnkNt & @1lts+1lKGnkNt, thanks for that info.
I knew RMAP coverage would be expensive, but I expected it to be the same as the COBRA rates because we're having to cover 100% of the costs w/o Cisco's supplemental contribution to premium costs that they offer to employees.
Back when I was a contractor before getting Cisco employee benefits, the consulting company's benefits coverage was very expensive ($600/wk!) with a higher deductible than Cisco's we tried to find coverage through non-work plans. Everyone we tried was either more expensive or they denied my wife coverage. At least being on Cisco's plan now, they can't reject her.
I'd assumed that I'd do what most people do, use COBRA's benefits while looking for a new job, and keep the Cisco eye plan since it's the cheapest cost to maintain RMAP eligibility. If the new employer's plan isn't great, or costs too much, I'd use the RMAP coverage instead. If it's that much more expensive, I may keep it as a fallback option instead of using it in favor of the next employer's plans.
And idea why it's 55% higher? What's the reasoning for the price hike?
I have seen the RMAP packet.
RMAP premiums for health insurance are significantly higher than COBRA premiums. About 55% higher.
If you want to cover your spouse and you're both under 65, you're looking at about $3,000/month for PPO and about $2,500/month for HPSP.
It will cost $2000 a month for RMAP medical for you both.
In same boat.
No joke.
Good luck.
OP, I have faith in our leadership to do what's best for their personal enrichment at the expense of mine. I don't worry about LR's anymore. I've been let go back when it was called a Workforce Reduction (WFR) and again when they renamed it to a Limited Restructuring (LR) which really was a cost-cutting measure to target older employees.
I celebrated my 10th yr of Cisco service during my "terminal leave" period of my second departure, but I wasn't yet 50, so I wasn't eligible for the retiree medical access plan (RMAP). Now I'm over 55, and I have more than 5 yrs of service, so the next (and last time) Cisco decides to terminate me, I'll take their retiree benefits with me and go work somewhere with low stress, low work expectations, decent pay, etc. as long as it covers the cost of my Cisco benefits and I'll let Cisco pay for my medical expenses beyond the deductible until I hit the age to draw Medicare. Between my wife's and my previously existing conditions, we can't get private/non-employer health care, so I'm sure we'll cost Cisco a pretty penny between now and turning 65. :-) Getting access to a good medical health plan after losing my job longer than the 18 months COBRA provides was worth coming back to Cisco for the third time and is the only reason I came back.
“have faith in our leadership”
- The Gulag Archipelago
Now, to the salt mines
OP is delusional if they think 22 years of continuous layoffs while the executives cash in is "recent" behavior. John Chambers' idol Jack Welch started this at GE 40 years ago.
Your co worker speaks sarcasm and irony fluently and you had a hiccup in your interpretation engine ?
I’m looking over the WARN act filings in the states with on-site locations because I do not trust this kind of attitude. I check every Tuesday. There are some big ones coming up for other tech companies.
yep losing market share every quarter from Ubiquiti, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Arista, and many more. Customers already woke and had enough of the licensing, the proprietary boxing, $$ hungry sales lemonade playbooks. If ELT leadership has such vision and resolve then why the yearly layoffs since 2001?
I was a long time Cisco loyalist, especially in my customer days. I used to feel that way early in my time at Cisco in 2012ish, even as I saw red flags. I was really bullish for a few years and followed the "certainly somebody is steering the ship", "trust leadership" mentality. Over time, I saw more and more missteps, failures to innovate, failures to invest in education and I started to personally question what was going on. Being on the sales side, I found it harder to sell customers on products (esp FTD, DNAC, etc..) that were bloated, complicated, expensive and brought very little value. Cisco has lost the edge, but they still generate billions and billions on normal run-rate business. Eventually, though, there WILL BE a reckoning and a ton of people are going to be LR'd...
Don't work at Cisco and complain about the lack of critical thinking skills by employees. Anyone with the slightest bit of common sense or reasoning skills is filtered out.
Cisco needs ignorant employees to boost the stock price.