I do know that if you let the COBRA drop, you are going to have a hell of a time with your next insurer. Letting coverage lapse opens the door for everything to be considered a pre-existing condition. If you don’t let coverage lapse, you’re next insurer is more lenient on time considerations for pre-existing. Nice how those insurance companies stick together on that isn’t it?

No, folks would mistake us for a bunch of boobs doing something like that.

AFLAC had the guts to come into our company to try and sell that crap to us!! The strange thing is that there sales pitch was so good, some people actually bought it. If anybody should have known better it was people in the industry. The stuff is junk insurance and you’re very fortunate to have them pay something. I feel sorry for folks who buy into their old folks home insurance. It’s really going to suck to find out you’re not covered the way you thought after a lifetime of payments to them.

Health insurance has a unique business model. The poorer service you give, the more money you make. If you have millions of dollars worth of claims setting with “problems” that prevent you from paying, you make interest off of that money. Then there’s another twist that applies to many trucking companies that are self-insured. The insurance company administers the claims, but they work with the companies money. So, if the company’s money is setting out in the market instead of paying claims that have “problems”, the company really enjoys the administrators bad service. Moral of the story – self-insured companies are always a bad bet for any type of health coverage.

There are some companies that actually care if you can believe it and they wanted all claims paid on a fair and timely basis. I’ve even seen companies pay claims that they did not need to just out of care for their fellow man! It was rare, but it did happen. Sometimes these payments were outrageously high too.

Another thing I always was amazed at was that certain employees, like upper level management, got special treatment. Usually, they were on a separate and much higher quality set of coverage. Even if they were not on better coverage, their claims were routed to special people in the insurance company to ensure timely and correct payment. The level at which their information was guarded for privacy was also on a different level.

Health insurance ALWAYS negotiates the price down. All of this time spent on negotiation actually adds to the total cost of health care. So you do not really get the level of coverage they claim you do. For example, if you have a $1000 claim on an 80/20 plan. You pay your $200, but the insurance company takes that and negotiates their $800 down. So, the actual bill is much less and you paid the percentage on the full amount. These negotiations usually happen on large blocks of claims, so there is no way you could say that your particular bill was negotiated down.

Do you know who runs the Departments of Insurance in most states? Leaders of insurance companies! Nobody in government could begin to understand insurance, so they let the fox guard the hen house.

I could rant forever about health insurance in general, but truck drivers get an even worse deal than the average covered worker. Did you ever notice that trucking company staff is usually on a different coverage than the drivers? That’s because the cost of the insurance is lower for the staff, so they can afford to offer them more.

My biggest problem with the ATA on health insurance is that they lobby for legislation that promotes an even worse situation for the driver! “Well, he’s got high blood pressure, can’t drive, we’re legal to fire him with no other reason and it’s not our fault.” Then they are only required to cover that driver for a while on COBRA after the law disqualifies them.

On another note, if the ATA had any morals at all, they would not accept members who scam people with the rip-off lease plans. Lease-plans are great for the companies! They get equipment paid for and release themselves from the costs and responsibilities of having an employee.

Do I think that the government should just step in and fix all this with public health care. NO! They would be even worse. We simply need to legislate for fair health care coverage laws and enforce those laws.

Now, this company sells these policies through workplaces, every ad they have, the damned duck quacks about getting hurt at work-and it doesnt even pay work-related injury. Since we work seven days a week, and have high injury rates, why in the world would we pay over $100/month for something that didnt pay for getting hurt at work? And if I win my Comp lawsuit, I’m supposed to pay them back. I think the whole thing is seriously un-ethical. Seems like everybody thinks truckers are fair game.

I know about the rotator cuff stuff-know several guys that had the problem. It’s pretty common. Dont know what the answer is in your case, though. If you drive company, you can go comp. No way a driver shouldnt have a disability policy-it’s just too risky.

In about 2001, the ATRI did a study nobody can get their hands on (it’s not on their publically-available research page that I can find-but I found the notes on a 2003 workshop website Michael Belzer put on that laid it out pretty well) that said that injury claims occurred mostly to drivers over 50 and/or after they had been driving seven years or more. Immediately after that study, my carrier started starving out all their older drivers. At the same time, they courted AARP-and got an award for hiring older drivers-seems a ‘new’ old driver isnt nearly the injury threat of an ‘old’ old driver-and keeps them from age discrimination lawsuits.I managed to get thru the first couple of rounds of terminations probably only because I’m female-and they know I document EVERYTHING! So I, and all the other long-term drivers limp around with numb legs and serious back pain, neck injuries,high blood pressure, vision going bad, sleep disturbances,irregular heartbeat, carpal tunnel, IBS-and still manage to get the job done. If you report in sick for any of it, they will try to make you out as defrauding comp and will terminate you at the earliest possible minute. They even keep physical therapists on staff at all the big terminals and you’re supposed to go to them to report any problems (only an idiot would tell them anything as the company pays them and under HiPPA, they have access to the information-and you’ll be gone before you end up with a claim).

The whole court order on making the HOS address ‘drivers health’ is getting them worried. There are plenty of studies out of Europe on the damage whole-body vibration will do. The EU is trying to put a 5 to 8 hr a day limit on driving to prevent damage and having one heck of a fight with the trucking companies over there-you simply cant run freight systems the way we do in this world on a 5-hr day. Our Workers Comp system doesnt recognise whole-body vibration as causative to occupational disease and regularly refuses lower back injury as an occupational disease at all-much less some of the other things that seem to be related.

Because it’s length of day exposure, bad roads and cheap seats, irregular working hours, poor food ‘choices’ (we only fuel at Pilot-what does that tell ya about my food choices?), exposure to diesel fumes, loud sleeping environment and stress, we all have health problems that creep up on a driver that runs hard.. There are studies to show that all of these things-including sleep apnea-have causitive factors directly relating to the job. The job has changed considerably since the old Teamster Rules days-anybody remember the “drive two hours, take a break” rule? If you can actually get out and walk around on ground that isnt moving, it helps negate a lot of the effects of WBV.There didnt really used to be long-haul like there has been for the last 25 years-before deregulation, the routes were much shorter-and so was the day. These carriers know this-and they know the eleven-hour day actually made the situation worse. I believe they’re running scared-sooner or later OSHA and ergonomics is going to get a foot in the door then there will be hell to pay. that’s why they NEED to control this study. They can keep blaming it on the drivers and their ‘poor health choices’-and nobody will catch on to the fact they know they’ve used us up and worn us out-and should be liable for the damage they’ve done.

I know there will be a few drivers pop in here and deny they have any of these problems. If they dont-or dont realize they do yet, they’re lucky. But this really needs to be talked about at great length. I told OOIDA a year ago that this sleep apnea thing needed to be jumped on immediately or it wouild end up worse than the drug testing fiasco was when it came in. The didnt believe it then-I think they do now. I think we’d better stick with OOIDA on this one-they’re the only voice that MIGHT be heard in Washington-you know individually, we dont have a voice. Its a good reason to pay them the $40 and join-they more members they represent, the more clout it gives them. It’s a matter of education-I spent an hour yeaterday explaining to my physical therapist exactly what a long-haul driver’s days weeks and years look like-she had no idea and can now understand the damage better. People THINK they know what the job entails-they dont. Most studies use LTL drivers for the study as they’re easier to pin down-but the study ends up skewed because their situation isnt the same.

Since I’m going to be terminated in a couple of weeks as I’m out of leave time and havent even got to surgery yet, I’ll be on the outside for awhile and can jerk every chain I can catch hold of-and I intend to do it. Now, I have all this free time to search the internet-lol!

The physical requirements put in place with most input coming from the ATA is a prime example. Do they want to solve the problem that is largely induced by the very nature of the job that they profit from? All I’ve ever seen is a few pamphlets stating the obvious. Yes, obesity is largely controlled by the individual, but trucking places us in a very difficult environment to maintain our health. What other industry could weed out their fat people with legislation? The ATA companies want to use you up until your health diminishes to the point that you are a liability, then legally fire you for health reasons. Obesity and related problems are just one small example of how they promote legislation against us.

The fact that they pose as driver representatives really irritates me. They’ve got the bucks, so the media is going to buddy up to them too. OOIDA’s influence is laughable at best up against the ATA.