1 hour ago
27
Albertsons is curbing health care benefits for employees due to rising healthcare costs.
Starting next year, the grocery giant will no longer offer medical insurance plans to employees' spouses and domestic partners who have jobs that provide such coverage. The grocery giant detailed the change in an open enrollment guide posted to its website.
Albertsons said it expects its healthcare costs to increase 9.5% next year due to inflation, higher prescription drug costs, provider consolidation, and shortages in the healthcare workforce.
"We are making changes to our benefits in 2027 to reduce the projected cost increase while still maintaining a quality benefits program that meets the needs of our associates at a cost sustainable for the company going forward," it said.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other changes this year include higher weekly paycheck contributions from employees, the elimination of two network plans, along with higher deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums for some other plans.
Large companies Disney, Starbucks, and Deloitte have also introduced cost-saving changes to their benefits packages for 2027. Disney is also dropping coverage for partners and spouses who can get insurance from their own jobs.
"We've seen employers reducing their contribution toward the spouse's coverage, but not eliminating the coverage option for those people," Capitol Benefits CEO Joshua Lavine told Business Insider in August, regarding Disney's decision.
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Dominick Reuter is a senior retail reporter for Business Insider, primarily covering Walmart, Target, Costco, and other big box retailers. His stories tend to focus on issues and trends that affect employees and customers, such as affordability challenges and the growing race to provide ultra-fast delivery services on e-commerce orders.Prior to joining BI in 2019, Dominick worked for more than a decade as an independent photojournalist covering a wide range of stories for global wire services and newspapers, including Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, and Agence France-Presse.Dominick studied photojournalism at Boston University and later earned a Masters in business and economics journalism from Columbia University.If you're an employee or customer with a story to share, please contact me via email or text/call/Signal at 646-768-4750.
