How the Rising Cost of Health Insurance Is Hitting Companies and Workers

WSJ What’s News

The Wall Street Journal

News, Daily News

4 • 4K Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

P.M. Edition for Oct. 22. The cost of health insurance keeps rising, with the average price for a family plan this year reaching just under $27,000. WSJ reporter Anna Wilde Mathews explains what’s driving costs higher and how that affects workers. Plus, the U.S. and Israel are considering a plan that would divide Gaza into separate zones controlled by Israel and Hamas. Journal correspondent Dov Lieber tells us what that idea could mean for the peace process. And Amazon is testing new warehouse robots and AI tools that could make its workers more efficient… and less necessary. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	As companies seek to close growing gaps in skills and talent,
0:04.0	Deloitte US CEO Jason Garzatus believes it's important for organizations to understand their baseline of skills.
0:10.0	There's so many organizations that can't ask and answer the fundamental questions about how much computer science or data management skills do I have or AI development skills in a given domain? By performing a
0:21.6	skills inventory, leaders can truly understand where their efforts should be focused. Being blind
0:26.3	to those gaps is the real miss. Visit Deloitte.com to learn how your enterprise can help successfully
0:31.8	cultivate talent. A family health plan now costs almost $27,000.
0:40.4	That's tough on employers providing the health benefits and on their workers, too.
0:44.9	If the cost of health coverage is going up a lot, this can put a lid on, say, salary increases for workers,
0:51.5	because that money is really having to go over to pay for the health benefits.
0:55.3	Plus, what we know about a U.S. plan to split Gaza in two.
0:59.5	And meet the warehouse robots and AI tools that could make Amazon more efficient.
1:04.8	It's Wednesday, October 22nd.
1:07.2	I'm Alex Oslo for the Wall Street Journal.
1:09.6	This is the PM edition of What's News, top headlines and business stories that move the world today.
1:19.4	Today, Amazon unveiled new warehouse robots and AI tools that could lead to a future where its human workers are more efficient and also less necessary.
1:29.5	One new technology Amazon is preparing for its warehouses or delivery vans is a robot arm called
1:35.3	Blue Jay that sorts packages. Here's the chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, Ty Brady, speaking at the
1:41.7	company's event today. Hundreds of millions of different objects that Blue Jay can not only pick, but they can also identify.
1:47.9	And over time, it will serve as core technology underpinning the expansion of our same-day delivery network.
1:54.8	That's a big deal for us.
1:56.4	There's also a new artificial intelligence agent meant to help human managers move workers around and avoid
2:02.1	bottlenecks. And augmented reality glasses would help drivers grab the right package to deliver
	...

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