Delta Air Line's new vaccine policy for employees raises ethical questions

SAN FRANCISCO - Delta Air Lines announced a controversial new policy Wednesday: unvaccinated employees will be charged more for their health care.

Delta says it has a 75% vaccination rate and wants to get as close to 100% as possible.

But one public health expert and several Delta passengers say the airline's latest move is not the way to go.

Delta's employees who are not vaccinated against the coronavirus now face increasing pressure to get that shot in the arm.

Beginning November 1, they will be required to pay $200 more per month for healthcare.

Several Delta passengers say it's unfair punishment to single out those workers.

"It's a way to bully their way into everybody's lives, the way big corporations like to do. I don't agree with it at all," said passenger Chris Avery who said he's vaccinated. .

Delta's CEO Ed Bastian wrote in a memo to workers, "Since the earliest days of the pandemic, our no. 1 priority has always been to protect our people and customers."

"The action that they're taking does not make the environment in which they're flying any safer," Arnab Mukherjea, Cal State East Bay Chair of Public Health, says Delta's move raises ethical questions.

"Employers now get to basically fine you for doing things that are bad for somebody's health," says Professor Mukherjea, "When somebody smokes, do we charge them higher premiums. What if somebody has a poor diet or addicted to alcohol? It lays a slippery slope where we're now penalizing behavior."

Delta says the average hospital stay for COVID-19 has cost the airline $50,000 per person.

And that all employees who've been hospitalized with the disease were not fully vaccinated.

CEO Bastian wrote, "This surcharge will be necessary to address the financial risk the decision to not vaccinate is creating for our company."

"If they want everyone to be vaccinated, maybe you just do the mandate and not change their healthcare," said Delta passenger Jessica Healy, an oncology nurse.  

Competitors such as United Airlines has a vaccine mandate for all of its employees.

A route that the professor says would better serve the safety of employees and passengers, especially now that Pfizer has received full FDA approval.

"Vaccinations need to be mandated across all employees and that's ultimately what makes a safe environment," said Mukherjea.

Delta did not say why it is not implementing a vaccine mandate for its employees. .

The professor says in the next six months, we may see an airline start requiring proof of vaccine for its passengers.