Disney Excludes Spouses from Healthcare Coverage Amid Rising Costs

The Walt Disney Company is making significant changes to its corporate benefits package in response to rising healthcare costs nationwide. The entertainment conglomerate will exclude spouses of US workers from company medical insurance plans if those spouses have access to healthcare coverage through their own employers, starting next year.

This decision follows earlier reports that Disney plans to launch an employee stock-purchase initiative later in 2027. As of September 2025, Disney employed approximately 172,000 workers across the US.

Joshua Lavine, chief executive of insurance consultancy Capitol Benefits, characterized the decision as an unusually strict cost-cutting measure, pointing out that while many employers choose to reduce the financial subsidy provided for a spouse's plan, entirely eliminating access to coverage is uncommon.