Hurley: Delta Will Implement $200 Health Benefits Surcharge For Unvaccinated

In a sign of similar things to come, Delta Air Lines has announced a company policy in which they will be charging their unvaccinated (for COVID-19) employees, $200 per month more than their vaccinated colleagues for their company-sponsored healthcare benefits plan. The surcharge will begin effective November 1, 2021.

This will no doubt be contentious and add fuel to the political fire between the vaccinated and the unwilling. Delta maintains that this is not a vaccination mandate, citing that employees still have a choice whether or not they wish to take the vaccine.

"Every company has to make its own decision for its culture, its people, what works according to its values," Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian told CNN yesterday. "I think these added voluntary steps, short of mandating a vaccine, will get us as close to 100% as we can."

Employees learned about the new rule through a staff memo in which Bastian said it is necessary to address the financial risk the airline faces from people who choose not to be vaccinated.

With Pfizer receiving full FDA approval for their COVID-19 vaccine, this is going to increase the likelihood that companies will implement vaccine mandates. Disney, Walmart, and other companies have already implemented COVID-19 vaccination mandates.

Approximately 1/3 of Americans remain unwilling to be vaccinated for a variety of reasons:

• The vaccine is experimental
• Concerns about side effects
• Conspiracy theories that the government has placed GPS tracking devices in the vaccine
• Religious beliefs
• Allergic to a vaccine ingredient(s)
• Reproductive concerns

The above are just some of the reasons that the unwilling have provided for not taking the vaccine.

SOURCE: CNN interview (8/24/21) with Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian.