How's Everyone Doing in LTL Right Now?

You are absolutely right, I was one of the ones that was employed by both Reddaway and Holland. I had the same health insurance plan with both companies. The only difference was I paid a $50 a month deductible with Reddaway but no Union dues, and with Holland we got the insurance for 100% employer paid but we had $50 union dues. I think Reddaway made us fork over the $50/month to keep the peace with the Unions as most of the company was non-union.

The plan that we had was indeed the Cadillac plan of health insurance, but if you really broke it down, it did not meet the affordability portion of the insurance trinity, at least not for anyone that was not employed by one of the Teamcare companies. We did the math and if you broke it down for a 40 hour work week, it came out to $14/hour, or around $2250 a month. Of course those of us even at the very bottom never saw any of these premiums and our employers absorbed the overwhelming majority of everything.

I found it disgustingly greedy that we were only within $2-$4 behind on pay compared to the competition, yet many of my colleagues complained about this gap. That insurance more than made up for any perceived lack of compensation. Maybe this is a bit too personal, but when my wife had our youngest, it was a complicated birth and our initial bill was well over $24,000. Our Holland insurance covered every single penny of it. It was insane. You know the #1 cause for bankruptcy in the USA is an unexpected medical emergency? I am most definitely glad you guys are financially positioned to get one of the better plans now. You will never find a plan like what we had with Teamcare ....at least not while driving a tractor trailer.

My current employer provides bare bones insurance at $50 a week with some insane annual deductibles, it's also why I go to the VA to at least get some stuff looked at whenever I can.