Not Vaccinated? Your Health Insurance Costs $200 More a Month

Delta Air Lines is raising health insurance premiums for unvaccinated employees by $200 a month to cover higher Covid costs.

Starting November 1, unvaccinated Delta employees who have health insurance from the company will face $200 monthly surcharges. Starting September 12, unvaccinated employees will have to take a Covid test every week, while “community case rates” are high, and wear masks effective September 12.

According to a Delta employee memo: “The average hospital stay for COVID-19 has cost Delta $50,000 per person. 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.”

Delta also said starting September 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.

Delta CEO Bastian said that about 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. United Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines say they will mandate vaccines for employees.