20 years ago I was at a company that had gone from small start-up to acquired by a company with more than 100k employees globally. At a site all-hands a year o

20 years ago I was at a company that had gone from small start-up to acquired by a company with more than 100k employees globally. At a site all-hands a year or so after the acquisition, someone from HR briefed us on a change of insurance benefit providers and plans, taking our per-check cost from ~$10 to ~$150 and cutting in-network physician lists dramatically. Naturally, people complained, and the HR person speaking, at that point a bit flustered, yelled "look, the good news is that this is saving [the company] a lot of money!" It didn't help, but it was the truth. They were doing it because they could and because the decision-makers didn't care that they were effectively giving everyone massive pay cut. They'd weighed the downsides and done the math. The real impacts are hard to quantify, though, as the employees that leave will be the ones who can, leaving the company biasing towards employees unable to leave. It's how companies slowly bleed out.