| | | Inside this issue: | Benefits Open Enrollment
|
The following is a message from our Council 14 Benefits Chairperson Dee Myers.
Benefits Open Enrollment
This is a reminder that now thru Oct 28, 2016 is open enrollment time for all your benefit options for 2017. You’ll find a link to Open Enrollment at the top of the Flying Together home page.
Since we have new options with our recently ratified Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), it is extremely important to go online to the Your Benefits Resources (YBR) site during Open Enrollment to compare plan summaries, their benefit levels, and monthly premium costs. A review of this information is essential, as you make decisions and choose the right plan for you and your family.
The website will take you through the Open Enrollment process, allow you to see plan summaries and documents, show and compare plans available, give you monthly costs, and allow you to make your elections, as well as add or delete dependents covered.
To compare plans available to you, once you are on the YBR webpage click the red “Message” button on the upper right. You will either open in a comparison of what you current (2016) benefits and 2017 will be, if no changes made, or be directed by clicking “make Your Annual Enrollment Changes” to this page. To compare and see what other options you have in each benefit category click the blue “view/change” button. You can click the boxes of three plans at a time to compare premiums, deductibles, coinsurances, out of pocket maximums, what is covered, including prescription drugs, mental health services, substance abuse and more.
For single tier employee plans, you will notice that of the dozen or so plans available, almost all Medical Plans have similar premiums for next year. Our medical premiums will be different than those of our flying partners on the mainland (even if traditional PPO etc.) because of State of Hawaii laws limiting premiums.
Flight Attendants with a permanent Hawaii address on file are subject to the Hawaii Prepaid Health Care Law. This means that the employee-only tier of health plans offered cannot be more than 1.5% of base pay. If you have a Hawaii permanent address on file, your employee-only coverage tier will have this cap applied to comply with the law.
Under the transitional HMO cost sharing provision of our new CBA, those choosing the employee + spouse, employee + child, or employee + family HMO plans, costs will be constrained by the 10% employee contribution for 2017. The employee contribution will phase in over the subsequent years to reach the full contractual 20% for 2020.
Also new this year will be a $48.00/month tobacco wellness credit for nonsmokers. You will see this in the “Total Cost” section at the bottom of the page.
On YBR, during enrollment, you can also add or update beneficiaries if needed. After completing enrollment, an e-mail along with a mailed confirmation is sent to you.
I would urge you to do it sooner than later as there are many resources to get your questions answered. If after reviewing the info sent to you and the website, you have unanswered questions or if you have questions about use of the website, your first call should be to the United Benefits Service @ 1 800 651-1007. Currently the number is readily available, but as we all know from previous years, the wait becomes long the closer we get to the deadline. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me. (808) 261-8249 myersd005@hawaii.rr.com
Aloha,
Dee
| 