New Home Depot benefits released--check out the last one

I just got a little brochure from our Benefits Choice Center. They have four new kinds of insurance available to us, and we get paid enough to participate. These are almost enough to mitigate the fact that Bob Nardelli's a Bush Pioneer.

The last one is simply unbelievable. I think I shall sign up for it. I am definitely checking into the third one.

Long-term Care Insurance
Provides coverage to help pay for services required by those who need long-term care, which is the type of care that might be necessary for someone with an ongoing illness or disability.

Who's eligible?
Associates and spouses (or surviving spouses); same and opposite-sex Domestic Partners of eligible Associates; parents and parents-in-law; adult children and stepchildren over age 18; grandparents and grandparents-in-law.

MetLaw Comprehensive Legal Plan
Provides you with legal advice and representation at an affordable price. You'll have access to a network of over 9000 experienced participating attorneys. All fully covered services are paid in full without any claim forms to complete when you use an in-network attorney. If you prefer, you can use an out-of-network attorney and be reimbursed based upon a set fee schedule. Provides coverage for legal services such as wills and estate planning documents, real estate matters, traffic offenses and identity theft.

Who's eliigible?
Spouse; common-law spouse; child; stepchild; your domestic partner, and children of your domestic partner.

Auto and/or Home Insurance (purchase together or separately)
You'll have access to a combination of valuable features for smarter, more complete coverage.

Who's eligible
Home/Renters: You, your co-residing spouse/civil union partner (in Vermont), resident relatives of either such person by blood, marriage, adoption, including wards and foster children, any person under 21 in the care of any of the above, your domestic partner with common ownership listed in the declarations.

In the event of your death, we insure your spouse/civil union partner (VT) if either is a resident of the household at the time of death (this one's about a mile long and I don't feel like typing the whole thing out now)

Auto: You and, unless specifically excluded, your co-residing spouse/civil union partner (VT), your domestic partner with common ownership listed in the declarations, resident relatives by blood, marriage, adoption, including wards and foster children, and permissive users.

Veterinary Pet Insurance
Health insurance for pets. A VPI policy covers thousands of medical problems and conditions related to accidental injuries, poisonings, and illness (including cancer).

Who's eligible
Dogs, cats, rabbits, ferrets, reptiles, birds and "other pets."

We also have two new no-cost benefits: MetLife Division of Estate Planning for Special Kids--an educational resource that assists families with all aspects of planning for the futures for their children or other dependents with special needs, and The MetLife Survivor Assistance Program--a program to help associates and/or their beneficiaries deal with the many details around, and to provide resources for coping with, the death of a loved one.

The pet medical insurance is a rather brilliant psychological move by HD HR.

How much would your co-pay be? Those are some fine benefits if the price is reasonable.

My dental premium is $24 and my vision co-pay is $6.

Co-pays are between $10 and $20--vision $10, medical $20 and I haven't checked the dental because the only one I've used is vision.

I really like the legal plan; if it's not outrageously priced it may be worthwhile. We've always had some sort of legal representation, but before it was on a space-available basis from corporate legal--and face it, corporate legal doesn't do personal traffic law. This is much better.

I have six cats and a dog. I could use some pet insurance. Those Vet bills keep getting higher and higher and higher just for routine stuff.

Likelyhood of being hired, though, is not too good. Home Depot is one of the better payers in this area, but they don't pay as well here as they do in the next county, which has a lower cost of living than we do in this one...

Any co-pay would beat full-pay, with six dogs needing heartworm pills every month and one needing Rimadyl and thyroid medication every day. :eyes:

Good on Home Depot - don't hear a lot of good things about them very often.

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1600
Dec. 4, 2003
Presidential Mystery Solved: Why Bush Is Stopping at Home Depot

Bush Rewards Generous GOP Donor with Visit to Maryland Store on Friday; Energy Bill Includes $48 Million Tax Break that Benefits the Giant Retailer

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Bush will make two stops in Maryland on Friday. The first is an exclusive, big-ticket fundraiser in Baltimore, where he is expected to add another million dollars to his massive campaign war chest. Then he’ll deliver a speech on the economy to workers at a Home Depot in nearby Halethorpe.
<snip>
Research by Public Citizen suggests the president’s visit is yet another way to reward the nation’s second-largest retailer for its generosity to the Bush campaign and the Republican Party. Home Depot employees and their families have given $1.5 million to the GOP since 1999, according to data provided to Public Citizen by the Center for Responsive Politics.

During that time, no candidate has benefited from Home Depot’s largesse more than Bush. The total includes $907,950 in mostly "soft money" donations to the Republican National Committee before such giving was outlawed by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). So far this year, Home Depot employees and the company political action committee have contributed $31,000 to the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign.
<snip>

opensecrets.org says that before he showed up to "take us to the next level," most of our corporate contributions went to the Democratic Party.