Delta Airlines is Increasing Health Insurance Premiums for Unvaccinated Workers

In what looks like an effort to get more people to consider vaccination for the coronavirus, Delta Airlines is raising its health insurance premiums for unvaccinated employees by $200 a month in order to cover the higher Covid costs.

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian notified employees Wednesday about the increase in their health insurance premiums.

“The average hospital stay for COVID-19 has cost Delta $50,000 per person,” Bastian said in an employee memo.

“This surcharge will be necessary to address the financial risk the decision to not vaccinate is creating for our company. In recent weeks since the rise of the B.1.617.2 variant, all Delta employees who have been hospitalized with COVID were not fully vaccinated.”

Beginning on November 1st, employees of the company that are still unvaccinated will face the $200 monthly surcharges.

Starting on Sept. 12, unvaccinated employees will have to take a Covid test every week, while “community case rates” are high.

Unvaccinated employees will also face other restrictions, such as indoor masking effective immediately.

Delta also said starting Sept. 30, “in compliance with state and local laws, COVID pay protection will only be provided to fully vaccinated individuals who are experiencing a breakthrough infection.”

Unvaccinated employees who contract Covid, without exemptions, will have to use their sick days after that.

According to the company’s CEO, roughly 75% of Delta’s roughly 75,000 employees are already vaccinated and that “aggressiveness of the [delta] variant means we need to get many more of our people vaccinated, and as close to 100 percent as possible.”

Delta earlier this year started requiring new employees to be vaccinated against Covid.

On Monday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave full approval to the Pfizer vaccine.

“Given the full FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine, the [President Joe Biden’s] strong statements asking employers to require employees get vaccinated, and the spike in new COVID cases around the US, we are likely at a tipping point for companies taking stricter measures to motivate employees to get vaccinated,” said Wade Symons, a partner and group leader for regulatory resources at human resources consulting firm Mercer to CNBC via e-mail.

“We anticipate more companies will announce vaccine mandates and surcharges in the coming weeks.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.