I won't pretend to have all of the HRA details but I have seen the R&I Committee Chairman's presentation. He didn't try to "sell" the plan to us and he seemed to like it. Since he's the smart guy on this subject we should probably keep from making snide remarks until we have all of the details.

Because we signed the CBA so late last year they didn't have time to make changes to our healthcare plan in time for the 2016 calendar year (and Congress postponed the implementation of the Cadillac Plan healthcare tax).

The way I understand it, plans with a total cost (contributed by both the Corporation and the pilot including including healthcare, vision and dental benefits) would be subject to a significant Obamacare tax. The HRA benefits were intentionally designed by mutual agreement of FedEx and ALPA to be under the taxable limit so as to avoid unwanted tax penalties.

In other related news, it appears that Capitol Hill has been getting complaints about the Cadillac Plan tax not just from ALPA but from MANY of their constituents. When I mentioned it to my Congressman, she agreed, "That was never the intent of the tax."

So ... for better or worse, we did the HRA plan to ourselves and will be forced to live with the consequences (and, 58% said it was good enough for them).