This post is primarily for those XJT pilots who have the HSA medical policy.
I got a new Optum Bank HSA card in the mail at the beginning of the year; I was surprised to receive it as I had not received any email or snail mail about XJT switching the HSA administrator. So I started making phone calls; turns out that XJT pretty much completely outsourced medical benefits to Benefit Express another company (not the insurance itself, but the admin of the program).
I had been using Benefit Wallet for my HSA card, and I was hoping to continue to use them and tried to close the brand new Optum Bank HSA card I had gotten in the mail. But when I did, I found that I had $250 on the card; sweet! Turns out that I get $250 per quarter on this new program. Ah, but I'm also paying $102 every paycheck to the new program instead of the $29 per check from last year. So that means that my medical insurance is now costing me more than double, even after the $1000 per year they're "giving" me ($760 vs. $1652)
When I first hired on at XJT nearly 2 years ago, I was told by several current pilots that XJT had "pretty good" health benefits. That may be true within the airline or regional business, but our benefits suck compared to what I got at my last employer, which was not an airline where I worked for 12 years.
Anyway, does anyone else care to chime in on this, or aware of it? I'm more ****ed at XJT for apparently doing all of this unannounced than the fact that it costs more.