After repeatedly telling members that healthcare was a done deal, Hall reversed himself, improved the benefits and blamed himself for the healthcare debacle.

Other issues still remain to be addressed in the rejected supplements—including more full-time jobs at airport facilities and hubs, the 17(i) loophole in the Central, and other supplemental issues. Ballots on some renegotiated supplements could go out as soon as Sept. 18.   

Central States TeamCare has put up a new website with information about the new plan. A summary of the TeamCare coverage that was rejected on the first vote is available here.

Members should study the new TeamCare coverage needs carefully and get answers to their questions at upcoming meetings with TeamCare representatives.

An initial review of the new coverage reveals that rank-and-file power and the Vote No movement have defeated most cuts and restored most of their healthcare coverage:

• Deductibles for the in-network PPO have been eliminated until the last year of the contract when there is a $100 per person / $200 per family deductible.
   


• Retiree healthcare coverage will be available for spouses and children who would have been denied coverage under the old plan. Spouses will be covered to age 65 or Medicare whichever comes first. Children will be covered to age 19, or to age 25 if a qualified student.
   


• Prescription co-pays have been eliminated for mail-order prescriptions and set at $5 for generic (or brand if no generic equivalent) from any pharmacy in the CVS Caremark network. The old TeamCare allowed up to $50 co-pays on prescriptions!
   


• Dental coverage has been improved and the $1,500 annual cap has been eliminated.

The Vote No movement has even won some improvements for members in the South, the Carolinas, and parts of the Central who were already covered by the old Central States TeamCare plan. Rank-and-file power pays off.

Tell Us What You Think

By organizing and Voting No members have stopped key benefit cuts and won better benefits—something Hoffa-Hall and many local officials said was impossible.

What do you think of the improved TeamCare coverage? What questions do you have? What does this say about rank-and-file power? And what should the Vote No movement and TDU’s Make UPS Deliver network do next?

Click here to send TDU your comments, questions and feedback.

In explaining its move — which was first reported by Kaiser Health News and USA Today — U.P.S. told employees, “Since the Affordable Care Act requires employers to provide affordable coverage, we believe your spouse should be covered by their own employer — just as U.P.S. has a responsibility to offer coverage to you, our employee.”

“In an effort to maintain premiums at or below current cost,” Andrew McGowan, a U.P.S. spokesman, said, “U.P.S. made a change that affects a limited number of employees.”

U.P.S. is one of the biggest companies so far to drop spousal coverage for some segment of its work force, and its announcement was viewed by some as a harbinger of a broader trend in employers’ restrictions on health care benefits.

Large employers like Xerox and Teva Pharmaceuticals already impose surcharges for spousal coverage. And some cities, like Terre Haute, Ind., decided to follow what many of its private corporations were doing, by adopting a “spousal carve-out” so that working spouses would not be covered under its health plans.

The limits on coverage are occurring as some cities and companies are also considering changes to coverage for retirees under 65 and not eligible for Medicare, who might be shifted to the health insurance exchanges being established in states under the Obama health care law.

While the percentage of employers adopting changes in policies like U.P.S.’s new limits remains in the single digits, it is growing. According to a corporate survey by Mercer, a consulting firm, 6 percent of companies with 500 or more employees excluded coverage for spouses in 2012 if their spouses could obtain coverage through their own employer. That is double the percentage in 2008, Mercer found.

Mercer’s survey also found that 6 percent of employers required a surcharge for workers who keep their spouses on their health coverage even though their spouses could obtain coverage from their own employer. A Towers Watson survey found that 33 percent of large employers said they would impose such a surcharge by 2015.

The new U.P.S. policy does not apply to the children of those employees. Nor does it affect the company’s 250,000 unionized workers, who belong to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. At the end of last year, the company had around 399,000 employees.

Several health care experts said companies were taking these moves partly because the federal health care law does not require employers to provide spousal coverage, but does require them to offer it to employees and their children. U.P.S. made clear that it would continue to provide coverage to spouses who did not have it through another employer.

Assessing U.P.S.’s new policy, Gary Claxton, a vice president and health care expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said, “It’s clear that it’s a competitive industry, and they want to cut costs.”

Barry Schilmeister, a senior health consultant at Mercer, said one reason more employers were embracing this policy was to help avoid being hit by the so-called Cadillac tax, which imposes a 40 percent tax on health care premiums above a certain threshold. In 2018, when that tax takes effect, the threshold will be $10,200 for individual coverage and $27,500 for family coverage.

“The Cadillac tax is going to be a serious extra cost for plans that exceed a certain level,” Mr. Schilmeister said. He added that with this move, “U.P.S. is in an indirect way addressing its overall costs — it’s going to lower its total exposure by potentially covering fewer people.”

Mr. Schilmeister predicted that many companies would shun the policy because it posed numerous problems. “It’s not going to be a popular move among employees,” he said.

He added that it would put many employers and employees in an uncomfortable position, with companies that adopt this policy often requiring employees to sign an affidavit affirming that their spouse was not being offered health coverage by another employer.

Many corporations have complained that their health costs would rise as a result of various provisions of the Affordable Care Act, like the requirement that insurance plans cover workers’ children up to age 26 and the prohibition against a lifetime cap on the amount insurance plans would pay for an employee’s health care. Both those provisions took effect in 2010.

Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, pointed to numerous studies that predicted that employers would continue to offer coverage notwithstanding the law’s requirements.

Moreover, premiums have been rising modestly, she said. In a survey of employers released on Tuesday, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the average annual premium for a family rose 4 percent in 2013, to $16,351.

Mr. Claxton, the vice president with the Kaiser Family Foundation, said he doubted provisions like the requirement to insure employers children up to age 26 were creating strains on U.P.S. and other companies.

“Those things are trivial in terms of expenses — just pennies per month,” Mr. Claxton said.

By: Steven Greenhouse NYTimes