jetlag q

What’s the cost of the medical benefits at 9E and is it a good plan?

Avroman

It's now through United Healthcare and it's basically Obamacare. It's a high deductible plan that still costs you almost $500 per month for family and you are looking at ballpark of $6000 in deductible before United starts doing much... and they love to deny even adding bills toward your deductible. For as far forward as we've come in pay, we've gone at least as far back in health care. Best to budget for at least $12000 in health care costs for a family plan, probably ends up being more... But for some reason universal health care is a bad thing???

theUpsideDown

Dont listen to avroman he's been here forever and volunteered to stay and be miserable. The health insurance is great compared to a lot of airlines and certainly blows the doors off obamacare. The deductible and premiums are less than Deltas (although delta makes more obviously).

It's fine, im sorry about him. Hes still upset he got a line and can't complain about being on reserve any longer. PM if you need medical details.

Avroman

Not quite but nice try. Our medical coverage is dismal compared to pre merger. Granted, unless you are in Congress, it's gone downhill for everyone in this country, but we've taken quite a hit in costs and deductables the last few years.

flydiamond

Avroman is somewhat right although he still overestimates it and doesn’t know a deductible from an out of pocket maximum. Here are the facts...

Monthly premium for a family is $411. Company provides $1350 of funds each year that rolls over to pay the $2700 deductible (which triggers 80% coverage) and there is a $6000 out of pocket maximum. So truly, the very most you could spend if your family was constantly sick and in the hospital is:

$411x12 + ($6000-$1350) which is $9500 all pre tax since there is a health savings account (HSA). Shouldn’t have a problem staying in network with UHC but if you didn’t that could raise the out of pocket maximum by $4000 which is $13500 total out of pocket, which most of would be tax free if you took advantage of the HSA (premiums are pre tax as are $6000 in HSA contributions). The only way you could get that high was if something very very serious came up like cancer or a highly invasive surgery that required follow up care from a specialist.

Best case scenario your family is healthy with just a few visits here and there (preventative is free) and the majority of the company’s $1350 plus whatever small amount you defer pre tax each month rolls over year after year to pay that $6000 out of pocket maximum when someone gets seriously injured or ill. All you pay in this case is the $411 a month. The HSA is great if you plan ahead, are healthy going in and allocate a bit of pre tax money each month.

There is also a PPO plan available but premiums are sky high for the family. $900 a month which would be 25% of a reserve FO’s paycheck.

I don’t think that our insurance is industry leading, maybe it’s even slightly below average for the industry and definitely worse than any major. It’s something that hasn’t been improved since the bankruptcy. The figures for an individual are all around much much lower than family coverage for what that’s worth.

The company includes the benefits guide with all this information when they invite you to the interview so there are no surprises.

theUpsideDown

Are you pretending you're now pre merger pinnacle? You should leave the company once and find out how it is out there in the real world.

Anyway, to the OP, the facts are well illustrated above by diamond. Keep in mind I have not reviewed every other regionals health care recently, but i was pretty sure we are above average for regionals. Doesn't matter though, if you can tolerate the costs above the Uhc it's been good in my experience.

Blueskies21

I don't normally but I'm going to side with Avroman here, our insurance is junk if you need to use it.

Is it worse than other airlines? No idea. I've heard Air Wisconsin still has industry leading insurance, of course that comes with a large reduction in pay, so weigh that accordingly.

We gave up some of our insurance cost language in bankruptcy, I think we used to have the company paid 75% and pilots paid 25%, I don't remember if that went to 70/30 or 66/33, someone else can look it up or correct me.

If you're 22, single and healthy, an HSA/HRA plan is great, it's got the lowest premiums and you aren't going to use it, so more money in your pocket.

But if you've got a family and your kid goes to the ER or your wife is pregnant an HRA/HSA with a $3000 deductible and $6000 out of pocket max is terrible insurance. You'll end up paying $6000 plus all your premiums.

Our insurance used to be pretty good but the HSA with the combined family deductible is garbage.

If you're married and your spouse has access to a better insurance or if you're healthy and never ever go to the doctor then it's fine.

All of that said, we make 20% more than other regional pilots, so you can offset the costs of the not-at-all-great insurance with that.

You'll get a copy of the benefits brochure with your interview packet, only you can decide what's right for your situation.

GuardPolice

Based on the $411/month premium and $2700 deductible as stated by another poster, you’re wrong. Our Gold HSA plan is $38/month less and the deductible is the same. Our max OOP is slightly higher but we can achieve more free HSA money from the company than 9E.

theUpsideDown

And to verify, you're going family plan v family plan. Years ago we saw side by side data and delta had some higher costs than ours (but negated by your higher pay obviously). And is that the way it's been or are the numbers you see changes in last couple years?

GuardPolice

Yeah family vs family as far as the info in this thread is portrayed. The Gold HSA is the highest premium HSA plan with the lowest deductible & co-insurance. There are Silver and Bronze plans that reduce the premium but deductibles go way up.