How to Money · Friday, September 25, 2026
Healthcare inflation is increasing costs, forcing employers to pass higher premiums onto consumers or reduce coverage. Companies like Disney are restricting spousal coverage, and Starbucks is dropping GLP-1 medication coverage due to soaring expenses.
“Healthcare inflation continues to be a big pain, a big thorn in our sides. Open enrollment season is approaching, and it's just crucial to be aware of the fact that your healthcare coverage is going to cost you more this year. Even you and I on MediShare, it feels like every few months, they are cramping our style in terms of raising... premiums, whatever, they're not actual premiums. They're eliminating services, they're reducing benefits. There are all these ways they're trying to not pass on the full cost by just making our coverage worse, by degrading the product. And so employers, their costs are rising on average somewhere like 8%. And so what are they doing? Well, they're passing on premium increases to individual consumers, employees, or they're also saying, our coverage doesn't include this, this or that.”
“There's also, I saw Starbucks dropping GLP-1 coverage because this is obviously a soaring cost for a lot of companies as well as more and more people get on get on GLP-1s and weight loss medication. So I think it's harder to save money in this space than it's ever been.”