[josephorjoe]

Are they the first big company to start adding insurance surcharges rather than attempting to make vaccination a requirement for employment?

Seems like it will be a fairly good motivation for anyone who hasn't decided outright that they will never get the vaccine. And it makes sense from a business perspective.

But I'm not sure this is a great precedent. I don't really want companies to have the ability to decide that certain employee health conditions (vaccinated vs unvaccinated, smoker vs non smoker, fit vs unfit) should affect the employee contribution to the insurance plan.

[hamburgerwah]

There is a union, making vaccination a requirement is almost certainly a violation of their labor agreement.

Separately the damage being done by trying to coerce people to get vaccinated is so extraordinary and counter productive. We are going to see a massive return of many preventable diseases as a result of this coercion having the predictable and opposite reaction to what's intended. It's going to set back public health 50 years.

[aloukissas]

Agree with you on the latter. The health insurance companies should do that, similarly to how life insurance is priced (i.e. rewarding good behaviors and taxing bad ones).

[hamburgerwah]

There is a union, making vaccination a requirement is almost certainly a violation of their labor agreement.