My employer has grown over the past five years from approx 20 people nation wide to approx 100. We have been very successful through Covid. We provide a construction service that is hard on the body to preform. Lots of hands and knees work on cold concrete.
Recently the directors have decided that people are “overusing” their health benefits. They have proposed a change from a minimal but fairly typical health insurance plan (from a terrible provider) to a health savings account. This severely limits the available funds that would be available in an emergency. For reference the company is proposing a $1500 account. This means each employee has a limit of 1500 for health related spending for a year. This is hardly enough to cover anything emergency or unpredicted. In Ontario that barely covers the minimum recommended dentist trips.
Our insurance says that our company is “overusing” benefits and that they have to charge more. Somehow the insurance offered us services at a price, then when we used those services they decided they couldn’t provide them at that price anymore. I fail to see how insurance companies can do that but this post is more about my employer
I have some questions about this before our company votes on it:
-
Does anyone in a union have a HSA?
I usually look to union agreements as what is a better case for the workers and I don’t know any unions who have allowed an HSA to be used. Immediate red flag to me. -
Is there an argument to be made in any way about how this is not purely a greed move on the company? – reducing premiums and keeping the money that is under instead of the insurance company.
-
Am I wrong to say that this would be an indirect pay decrease? In theory I have access to way more than $1500 in assistance through my insurance. It is my prerogative to use it if I want. Like vacation days that insurance is part of my compensation