I have always heard that COBRA costs exorbitant amounts of money each month to keep one's medical insurance going along steadily.

In fact, the amount I'd heard bandied (bantied?) around at my job was $1000 each month. Mr. A doesn't care about medical or dental insurance since he never goes to the doctor, and so it wasn't a concern that he wasn't covered.

I am able to cover our 18 year old until he turns 19 in the fall, so I got him signed up for insurance through my employer. To the tune of nearly $500 each month.  This is terribly expensive, but worth it for the peace of mind.

On Friday, Mr. A got a certified letter in the mail, but no one was home to sign for it. The mail carrier tried again today, and again couldn't get our attention (we live on a fairly large acreage and the yard is fenced, so unless we are outdoor when he honks we don't hear him). The post office called around 3:30 to let us know the letter was back at the post office.

I was on my way into town, and Mr. A called to find out if I could pick it up for him. He said the post office would allow me to pick it up if I showed ID with the same last name and address.

I don't like certified mail. I'm always scared it's going to turn out to be something awful. Not that I can remember personally getting anything certified that turned out bad… I digress… So as soon as I got into my vehicle, I asked Mr. A if he would mind if I opened it. Otherwise I'd have to spend the next 20 minutes driving home, stressing out about it. He said, “No, go ahead, see what it is.” I just have this thing about opening mail addressed to other people, even though it is my husband, I respect that it's his mail. The other funny thing is he doesn't care, so he will let mail sit around for days before opening it. So I open it up and it's a letter talking about COBRA insurance from his last job.

He can cover himself until September 2009, at the same rate he was paying when he put in his notice. That rate also includes the coverage of our youngest son who I've been covering at my job.

This is such great news. Mr. A and our son can be covered with medical and dental (with a $1500 deductible) for $230 a month.

That is about half what we're paying now, just to cover our son.

Wow!!  I am not sure why his employer just now got around to letting him know that he is eligible for COBRA. We could have been saving this money several months ago.  But I guess better late than never.  At least they finally got on the ball and sent the paperwork. I didn't even think to ask because as I said earlier I assumed it was going to cost an exorbitant amount.

Have you ever had COBRA?