Delta to Charge Unvaccinated Employees $200 Extra Insurance Fee
For weeks, big employers like Citigroup, Google and the Walt Disney Company have been warming to the idea of requiring coronavirus vaccines for employees. Now that one vaccine has received full federal approval, President Biden wants more to follow suit.
Delta Air Lines has chosen a very different tack — one that might seem to provide employees more choice but could be much harder to carry out. The company on Wednesday became the first large U.S. employer to embrace an idea that has been widely discussed but is mired in legal uncertainty: charging unvaccinated employees more for health insurance.
Starting Nov. 1, Delta employees who have not received the vaccine will have to pay an additional $200 per month to remain on the company’s health plan. It is part of a series of requirements that unvaccinated workers will face in the months to come, the airline’s chief executive, Ed Bastian, said in a memo to staff.
Every Delta employee who has been hospitalized because of the coronavirus in recent weeks was not yet fully vaccinated, with hospital stays costing the company an average of about $50,000. Like most large employers, Delta insures its own workforce, meaning it pays health costs directly and hires an insurance company to administer its plans.
Corporate executives have wrestled with how to restore some normalcy to their operations, including by letting workers return to offices. They are trying to achieve several goals that can at times come into conflict: keeping employees safe, retaining staff opposed to vaccines at a time of tremendous turnover, and showing customers that they are taking the pandemic seriously while not alienating others put off by masks and other restrictions.
Several companies, particularly those in health care, have made vaccination a condition of employment. Under a recent Biden administration policy, any nursing home that receives federal funds will be required to mandate vaccines for workers.
Source: The New York Times
