Sponsorship - H1B extension

As the topic says - 

I have been working in this company from analyst to associate and recently I needed H1B extension. The company told me that premium processing is out-of-pocket, which sounds almost ridiculous to me as I don’t understand why a firm would argue for $2800 with an associate who has been consistently working over 80 hours for the firm. To my knowledge, most firms sponsor PP as default if they help extend H1B. I don’t know what to do and want to hear your advice. I love my team and it’s relatively small team so everyone knows each other well. My manager told me he has no say in this matter as it relates to HR and he would not make a difference.

thoughts? Opinions?

I feel strongly discouraged as

1. I have been always the top performer and have been working really hard for the team over past three years and yet the company is pushing back on $2800.

2. This indicates they don’t care about me staying or not and I’m nobody to them. Do I want to work for a manager or team like this in long term?

3. My team treated this as an inconvenience although they didnt explicitly say but they been telling multiple times I’m the only person who needs that kind of stuff. Feel like without citizenship or green card, it’s just inevitably to be treated as second class citizen in this industry.