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Non-Tech : Kirk's Market Thoughts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kirk © who wrote (11828)	8/25/2021 1:27:21 AM
From: Winfastorlose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26808

Go ahead and ban me, Kirk. If you think I will lose any sleep over it, think again. This board has become little different from epicure's boards anyway. Full of liberal garbage. You don't police the whackos. If you had any sense of decorum you would address people with whom you have issues in a PM instead of in a public message. But in your old age, you seem to have lost it. You aren't the same person you were 10 or 15 years ago.

To: Kirk © who wrote (11828)	8/25/2021 2:23:23 PM
From: John Koligman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26808

I think the 'writing is on the wall' in regard to vaccination. Unless you want to get fired or pay a bunch more for insurance, that is. Here is the first of what will probably be many 'shots' across the bow. Delta Air Lines is raising health insurance premiums for unvaccinated employees by $200 a month to cover higher Covid costs PUBLISHED WED, AUG 25 202110:00 AM EDTUPDATED 38 MIN AGO Leslie Josephs @LESLIEJOSEPHS Starting Nov. 1, unvaccinated Delta employees who have health insurance from the company will face $200 monthly surcharges.From Sept. 12, unvaccinated employees will have to take a Covid test every week, while “community case rates” are high.United Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines say they will mandate vaccines for employees. Flight attendants hand out refreshments to a packed Delta Airlines flight traveling from Ronald Regan National Airport to MinneapolisSaint Paul International Airport on Friday, May 21, 2021. Kent Nishimura \| Los Angeles Times \| Getty Images Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian notified employees Wednesday that they will face $200 monthly increases on their health insurance premiums starting Nov. 1 if they aren’t vaccinated against Covid-19, citing steep costs to cover employees who are hospitalized with the virus. Unvaccinated employees will face other restrictions, including indoor masking effective immediately and weekly Covid-19 tests starting Sept. 12, the Atlanta-based airline said in announcing new Covid policies for employees. The measures are the latest attempt by a U.S. corporation to drive up Covid vaccination rates. Delta stopped short of an outright mandate like rival United Airlines established earlier this month. Delta, which self-insures its employees, stands out in its plans to raise premiums for unvaccinated workers to cover the higher costs of insuring employees who get Covid. “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.” United Healthcare administers the airline’s health insurance plans. The change in approach was Delta’s initiative. 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. 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. On Monday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave full approval to the Pfizer vaccine though a Delta spokeswoman said the plan had been in the works for weeks and that the timing was coincidental. Alaska Airlines earlier this month told employees that it was considering requiring employees to be vaccinated against Covid but that it would only do so after one of the vaccines received full approval. Frontier Airlines said this month that employees have to be vaccinated or test regularly for Covid. Delta, which has the fewest unionized employees of the large U.S. airlines, said it informed the Air Line Pilots Association, their aviators’ labor union, of the changes. The Delta chapter of ALPA has repeatedly said vaccinations should be voluntary for its members. The union “has consistently advocated to maintain the right of each individual pilot to consult with his or her medical provider regarding COVID-19 vaccinations or booster doses,” it said in a statement. “While the Delta [master executive council] respects Delta Air Line’s efforts to mitigate the impact of breakthrough COVID-19 variant infections, it needs to bargain with the Delta MEC over any employer-mandated vaccination for pilots.” Airlines have been among the hardest-hit companies by the pandemic, and the rise of the Covid delta variant is already driving down a recent recovery in bookings, according to airlines including Southwest, American Airlines and Spirit Airlines. Correction: This article was updated after Delta Air Lines corrected its average medical costs of an employee hospitalized with Covid. It is $50,000 per person.