Medicare now requires dependents’ SSNs

A new federal law requires railroad workers to provide the Social Security numbers of their dependents. The Medicare secondary payer statute and regulations contain a series of rules for determining whether Medicare is the primary payer for a person who has both Medicare and [...]

Medicare now requires dependents' SSNs

A new federal law requires railroad workers to provide the Social Security numbers of their dependents. The Medicare secondary payer statute and regulations contain a series of rules for determining whether Medicare is the primary payer for a person who has both Medicare and [...]

Easing the pain of furloughs

By UTU Assistant President Arty Martin As a union, we can’t make the economy better, but we always attempt to make life better for our members caught up in the downturn. Many younger members, having left non-railroad employment to take railroad jobs, have now found themselves [...]

COBRA subsidy info available soon

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which was signed into law by President Obama on Feb. 17, 2009, may temporarily reduce the premium you have to pay to purchase Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) continuation coverage under the medi [...]

Aetna corrects dental-insurance policy

Aetna has corrected the coordination-of-benefits policy of the national dental plan it administers for UTU members employed on freight railroads and Amtrak. The change applies only where Aetna is the secondary payer and the primary payer is another dental-insurance plan. An a [...]

Predictable crew schedules not radical

By UTU International President Mike Futhey For more years than I care to count, we having been telling the carriers that if we couldn’t come up with a mutually acceptable solution at the bargaining table to the problem of availability policies and train-crew fatigue that we w [...]