ThunderChicken,
your not a line holder... stop lying to us...

 

Well at least I don't drive a celica with a different color trunk...

 

Don't forget this plan has a lifetime maximum benefit. After $1,000,000 is reached, you are SOL for the rest of your life.

 

It is a $2,000,000 max for the time you are enrolled in the plan. That is straight out of the Summary Plan Description. The PPO is the exact same. That is what I keep trying to say. The insurance portion is the same in the PPO and the HSA, the only difference is the deductible.

 

The Definity HSA (at least for SKYW) says $1,000,000 lifetime max (per person, network or out of network) in the plan description. Are you ASA or SKYW? Would be interested in knowing if they only cut the lifetime maximum in half for SKYW.

 

They can not remove the ASA PPO without breaking the contract. If they think they can it will back fire on them in a bad way.

 

I haven't had a chance to read all of the details of the new plan, so I'm sure there are factors that I'm not considering, but just going off of the numbers in the company memo, this is how I understand it: Under the CDHP, premiums for a family would be about $1980 a year less than the PPO. So if you have to max out or exceed the deductible of $2400, you would lose about $420 a year. With the $1000 contribution from the company in 2010 and 2011, you would actually gain about $580 a year, even if you have to max out the deductible. Am I looking at this wrong?

I agree the company should continue to offer the PPO. From 2012 on, after the company contribution goes away, the new plan could cause employees to pay more.
According to Chapter 28 of our contract:

28. INSURANCE
A. Insurance Benefits
1. All Insurance benefits (e.g., life, dependent life, medical,
long-term disability, dental, loss of license, etc.) that are
presently offered to the pilots, or hereinafter made available
to Company employees, will continue to be offered
and will be made available on the same terms to the pilots.
If any improvements or additions in the current policies are
offered to other employee groups within the Company, the
same improvements or additions will be offered to the
pilots.

How does the company get around this section of the contract? What is the union's stance?

 

Per 28.F.1 of ASA's CBA, our medical insurance plan has a lifetime max of $2 million.

 

Does anyone know what rate you pay your doctor for office visits and procedures? I was just reviewing the medical bills from when my son was born. One example was a "submitted charge" from the ob of $2,500, the "negotiated or allowed" by the insurance company was $1865. I paid 20% of $1865. I found an even bigger difference between "submitted charge" and "negotiated or allowed" for lab services. The lab services were $244, but the negotiated or allowed was $56. I paid $11.

It seems to me you could end up getting hosed if you pay the full price for anything. Looking over my medical bills over the past few years, it seems the insurance company rarely paid 80% of the submitted amount. So with this new plan, are you going to be paying the full amount or the negotiated amount?

According to the American Cancer Society, men have a 1 in 6 chance of being diagnosed with prostate cancer and women have a 1 in 8 chance of being diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. I watched my mother go through a mastectomy, radiation treatment, and years of chemo therapy before succumbing to breast cancer. Y'all better make sure you have plenty saved in that HSA.

 

Question in regard to the above.

If there is a max pay, i.e $6000 in the HSA just like the ppo, why would a major health care cost be a bigger deal in the HSA? I mean, if you had a traumatic event like a cancer care, wouldn't you just be on the hook for the max?