SKYW/ASA Healthcare reform
 

Who else is upset with the HSA/CDHP plans being the only plans offered by 2012. I can't believe this is happening. The health benefit's were one major reason for me signing up for this job. Now they're going to take severly cut our actual benefit from the health benefits. Pretty much set up your own HSA that they are trying to buy everyone into for 2010 and 2011 by providing HSA contributions. Seems if a family member get's cancer or some other chronic disease we will go broke paying at least $6,000k per year for something health insurance is supposed to cover. Maybe it'll lbe okay for families that are in perfect health all the time...

So...... are you SKW or ASA?

He's ASA....

I think everyone at ASA needs to sit down and run the numbers before they get upset. HSA accounting is different but even if you use the full deductible you'll spend less money by using it. I switched over voluntarily because of it and I have a family I would consider average and I expected to go through the full deductible before I got furloughed. Not sure if the SKW plan works out as well though.

the SKW deductible, under the new plan in up from 5k to 10k. Not cool. You have an accident and you might as well declare bankruptcy. Shame on your SKW (not the pilots, inc). I can see that wave making here in ASA in a short time...

Aside from working as a pilot, I have been a financial planner for 15 years. Generally speaking, a HSA style health plan is a better option for you if you are healthy. The whole point of the savings portion is to allow you to hang on to your own money instead of giving it to the insurance company. If you are smart and careful (and lucky) you will have a sizable savings ready for an emergency, and if the emergency doesn't materialize you have the peace of mind knowing that you are prepared. Run the numbers--it works.

While it would work well if you were healthy and lucky, a bad injury or sudden illness in the family could be a bankruptcy event for someone with our wages. A plan like that wouldn't work for anyone. In my opinion, the only accecptable outcome would be if they offered a choice to stay on the current plan or switch to the HSA plan.

Those savings we're supposed to save for an emergency will vaporize the next time they come to us looking for more labor cost savings.

If a family member get's cancer, then what? The family goes broke in a year because of a lacking health care plan? We don't pay much right now for PPO and personally, I never think about where my money is going because health care is so important.

My fiance is in the health industry and I'm afraid if HSA's are the way of the future that her wages will suffer drastically due to this system.

Once again it's all about the all mighty dollar for companies. I'm about saving money with fuel and such but no way for health care. If they're all about our benefit then leave PPO an option, if some like HSA better let them enroll in it. I've learned to get ready to bend over when I read "...to better position ASA for...future..."

I hope they pick up the tab when you have to pay $300 for a doctor's note.

WRONG!!!! The deductible is $2400 for a family not $6000 or $10000. The max out of pocket is only $6000. The former PPO plan I was on was a $5000 out of pocket maximum.

People need to do their homework before they start freaking out. I did the math and last year if I would have put just as much money toward the HSA as I did my premiums for my PPO I would have spent $900 dollars less with the HSA. And before you start spouting of about how I had no medical expenses last year I have 2 kids and my wife was pregnant and had a baby.

If you do your homework if you max out the $5000 on the PPO plan or the $6000 on the HSA plan, you would have spent less money through out the year on the HSA plan because the premiums for the PPO plan are higher.

IMO people really don't understand how these plans work.

ASA threads suck.

Thats Mature... lol

I'm not smart (that's why I'm a pilot) I'm reasonably careful, I'm healthy(Lost 30 lbs in the last 8 months) but I CANNOT control the Luck factor. Wavit is right, alot of us myself included don't understand these plans, what I do understand is that with the HSA you need a little or maybe a lot of luck and that is precisely the reason people have insurance, cause you can't control luck. I'd rather pay the extra premium for my PPO and not be worried on Jan 1 2012 about my kid having a traumatic accident and me with an EMPTY HSA. Skywaste has once again proven that they do not care about their employees. I understand that many people may benefit from the HSA, great, let us have a CHOICE!! I for one am disgusted.

The HSA does not leave you without insurance. You have the same 80% coverage that the PPO has. The only difference is that the deductible is much higher in the HSA. If there was a traumatic accident to anyone (God forbid), it's not like you are stuck with the full bill. You will pay out of pocket up to the deductible (or max out-of-pocket amount) and the co-insurance (80% covered) kicks in the same as if you just had the PPO. I am still deciding what I am going to do, I just don't want people to think the HSA is not insurance. It is basically insurance that has a bank account attached that you pay the out of pocket expenses from.

This reminds me of some catastrophic health insurance I got between getting a job out of college. I was no longer able to have my parent's insurance but I was working at a restaurant that didn't provide any. Anyway, it had a massive deductible and was only really meant to save you from financial Armageddon if you got hit by a car, had a heart attack, or got cancer.

The problem with policies like this is that it persuades you against going in for small problems. You might think twice about going in for a cough or sore throat because you'd have to pay the full $300 for the doctor visit. Most of the time you'd save money by being thrifty on the doctor visits. But what if you were in the early stages of pneumonia or cancer? You'd hold off until you were seriously ill and then not only will the bills be much higher for everyone but your chances of survival might have gone down considerably.

I had a buddy who had a massive sore throat for weeks and weeks but didn't go in because he didn't have insurance. Finally one day his tonsils started closing in and he could barely breath. We ran him into the ER and it turns out he had mono. Probably had it the entire time. Through all that he put in long days and nights and could of seriously hurt himself with the swollen spleen. If he had good insurance he wouldn't have been concerned about going in to see a regular doctor for a checkup. Instead he put it off and the problem just got worse and had we not of gotten him to a hospital he might have suffocated!

WAVIT, thanks for your comments. You are dead on.

The problem is health care is not free. There is always a cost involved. And in the case of the health insurance, premiums have been going up steadily by 10% per year for the last 10-15 years. That's WAY above inflation. But before we go blaming the insurance companies for greed and selfishness, we have to realized that they only make a 5-7% margin. Apple makes 50%, just to put things in perspective. A 10-15% profit margin is considered reasonable. So the health insurance companies are not at fault for the increases, and ASA/SkyWest and other companies trying to save a few bucks are also victims.

HSA plans are actually part of the solution. If you think about it, you really have no idea how much your insurance actually costs, because it is subsidized by your employer. For that matter, you have no idea how much your doctor or hospital bill actually is because 80% of it is paid by the insurance company. There is no free market in health care, because the actual consumer (us) is sheltered from the true costs by the way the system works. We shop for groceries, we shop for a new car, we shop for everything, but not for health care. Unless it's something catastrophic, no one gets a second opinion.

Imagine buying auto insurance that covers everything down to oil changes. It would cost a lot more, right? But because you and I have to reach into our own wallet to pay for maintenance, etc. companies have to compete based on price as well as quality.

HSA plans with their higher deductibles encourage people to be smart consumers. Granted, if I just broke my arm I'm not going to get on the phone and call around to see who will give me the best deal. But if it's a routine check-up, or a procedure that can be scheduled in advance, there is all the reason in the world to shop around and save some money.

In short, HSA plans, while hardly perfect, are a response to runaway health care and insurance costs that help bring those same costs under control. They are not the only solution, but they are part of it.

WAVIT Inbound,
padron me, a misinformed good friend at skywest told me that verbatim, I stand corrected as he exaggerated.

hmmm. if it's that bad, just leave and go somewhere with better healthcare options.. bring me one number closer to recall :-)

Seriously, I need to do some studying to see what the heck to do if I do get to go back to work..

Now in light of my previous comments let me say one other thing. While I don't think the HSA is AS BAD as people are making it out to be I still think the PPo and HMO plans should be offered. I am not saying that SkyWest is doing the right thing by taking it away. Nor am I saying they can do no wrong. On the contrary actually! I am joining the fight to keep the PPO and HMO options at SkyWest. I still think people should have an option and not be forced into the HSA. All I am saying is that the HSA is not as bad as everyone is making it out to be. Like I said, last year I would have saved money on that plan as opposed to my PPO plan.

Awwww poor lil' insurance companies. I guess I should feel bad for them when they deny people treatment for cancer and other things for BS reasons. Not to mention you're comparing a computer company to an insurance company two totally different things. But I guess when I think about people getting bankrupted by health insurance costs I know it will be for the greater good so some exec can get a new Ferrari because they were able to boost their margins.

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?

I guess it depends on how long the cancer treatment lasts. With my mom, it was 3 years. That would be $18,000 out of pocket, or more if the 36 months were split between 4 calendar years. With my current PPO plan, our max out of pocket is $1,500 per year.

I admit I don't have all the info on an HSA plan, and I might even advocate them for some people. From my perspective, HSA is to HMO, as 401(k) is to pension. It takes personal responsibility--something Americans want, but most can't handle. If you look at Americans as a whole when it comes to 401(k)s, it's not very impressive. Companies that offer HSAs need to have a lot of guidance on what an appropriate amount to save.

This is an accurate comparison...Like pensions, however, HMOs and PPOs are not sustainable long term...They are nice "promises", but the money simply isn't there to follow through on the "promises"...The pensions aren't very impressive anymore either....

The current mess we are in is because of the lack of personal responsibility you refer to....That is our downfall...

Baloney. The mess that we are in is a result of encouraged and institutionalized greed birthed during the Reagan era. Lack of regulatory oversight led to the Great Depression. The right wing steadiliy eroded oversight through legislation and neglect, creating another economic crisis.

The difficulties we face are not due to some widespread failing of the American people. These difficulties have been created by the system of crony capitalism in place in our country. Government has the ability through the crafting of tax laws and financial regulation to facilitate and encourage individual savings. Pension systems fail due to poor business decisions, not because Americans are morally weak or lack individual responsibility.

The monied class has used the government/corporate revolving door to line its own pockets and ignore the long term needs of our nation. They are focused on this quarter's profits and this year's bonus check. They do not care about the ever expanding fiscal bite health care costs take from working americans. They do not care about steering our educational system in a way that insures americans will be the world's best educated work force. All they care about is diverting more and more of our nation's wealth into a narrow and very wealthy sliver of the population. At this, they have been phenomenally successful.

So you don't think people over extended themselves and spent more than they had? I saw a lot of "regular" folks get "greedy" with the housing boom...They actually believed that it was going to continue.

As far as regulation...It was government involvement in trying to put people in houses that couldn't qualify normally that made the problem worse...

Health care costs and lack of retirement savings are the next shoes to drop....At least we have our fancy cell phones, X boxes, and plasma TVs....

People certainly over-extended themselves. Lack of government oversight led to bizarre mortgages and financial products behind the scenes such as credit default swaps. Eventually the whole house of cards came down. Were home buyers greedy and hyped up by unrealistic increases in home values? Sure. This same combination of greed and lack of government scrutiny led Enron and A. G. Anderson executives to use wacky accounting to falsely value their assets, eventually leading to another spectacular failure.

"Lack of retirement savings"? Is the problem a lack of savings or people believing the stock market would never decline and making investments containing too much risk? George W. Bush wanted to privatize Social Security. Too bad I could not get my hands on my SSA account and invest the whole nut on breathtakingly complex financial products. Or better yet, take it all to Vegas and place it on "red".

What is the greater economic engine; people saving a lot or buying consumer goods? Probably a combination of the two. The government has the power to steer this with smart fiscal and economic policy and a system of regulatory oversight.

hey question for someone with an understanding of how the ASA system works.

If I choose to go with the HSA plan now, I was using the PPO, when I enroll in the HSA plan do I need to click on the medical tab under open enrollment and choose "i decline coverage" where the option to otherwise choose PPO is?

Hopefully this question makes sense.

Thanks alls yalls

I'm amazed how in the same post somebody can 1. blame government for all the ills of society, and 2. expect government to come to the rescue.

The government didn't put a gun to the head of borrowers and force them into 3:1 ARMs, or buying houses with monthly payments over 35% their net income, or using their house as a home equity ATM machine, or force them into thousands of dollars in unsecured credit card debt for their flat-screen TVs and iPhones.

Yes, greed and the zealous desire to produce returns for shareholders played a role in this economic situation...but its far too simple (and naive) to point a finger at people with (R)s beside their name without pointing one just as hard at the LACK OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY involved in all this.

Americans proclaim to want choice & responsibility, but as a whole are clearly unwilling to accept that responsibility and the consequences that comes with it.

A little less government and a little more Dave Ramsey would do this country a hell of a lot of good.