Bigman, what part of NorCal? And, more importantly what kind of magical healthcare plan do you have?
About 70 miles dead east of SF. I am a union electrician. Our medical plan has 3 choices Kaiser, united healthcare or pacific care. Basically how ours works is the employer pays for 99% of the costs minus the copay, we cover any increased costs of the plan which there are every year when we negotiate a new agreement (every 3 years) so for an example if we ask for a $3 an hour raise and get it, we have to allocate that $3 to different items (all voted for by the membership but recommendations made by our committee I.E. on the check, pension plan, health and welfare.) So let's say our committee says there is a 16% increase in healthcare costs this year and we need to take $1.75 out of that $3 raise we got to cover it. then we say yes or no by vote, most of the time yes, then we vote on ways to use the rest like for example - $1 on the check and .25 to pension etc.
An extra to this is our union goes out every year and fights for the best price from all of our healthcare providers, if for some reason they say the cost is higher this year which of course they do every year because they are fucking crooks like attorneys lol what this means is at every contract negotiation time we expect to have to allocate any new money that comes in, IF and it happens a lot the employers say hey times are tight we can not give you any money but we will help with healthcare here is .50 this time take it or leave it, and of course we take it and apply all of it begrudgingly to "increased healthcare costs"
So what we get is full coverage for all family members(after a 90 day period after you first join) 15 years for me.
Now let me say this (very important) so that it is not all roses.... our coverage is based on hours worked, you have to maintain a certain number of hours reported monthly by your employer in order to keep all of the coverages, if you get laid off it is just like any other plan...it ends and you go on cobra coverage. I have only had to do this once in 15 years, yes we stay busy in the SF/OAK bay area lots of construction all year all the time.
What my local has done to help our members that do get laid off and do not always get to work a full year etc is to pay extra into the monthly healthcare costs out of our contract raises, so instead of giving the $1.75 we would give $2.00 for example, what this does is increase the amount of time our guys can be laid off and still have coverage averaging 6 months instead of 3 so they can pick up work again with in the 6 months and never loose coverage, in the old days it was about 3 months then you went on cobra, when times were slow 2 years ago we added money to the fund and was able to increase the duration to 6 months.
We also voted for and got a copay reimbursement program where the copay is reimburse by the employer via the plan for a contract duration. This helps people who have multiple copays like children etc it also included prescription costs as well so all your meds get re payed.
This plan is for medical only the vision and dental are separate and more like corporate plans with caps on certain items and extras.
so bottom line for me is so long as I work i continue to get great medical coverage. No free ride here and no union bully bs either trade unions don't do that shit.
Hope this explains it ;)
