Disney, Amazon, Netflix among companies offering travel benefits to obtain abortions

Yahoo Finance's Allie Garfinkle discusses how companies are increasingly offering benefits that help employees receive health care out of state, including abortions.

Video transcript

BRIAN CHEUNG: I want to switch back to the topic of the Supreme Court overturning Roe versus Wade. Obviously, we've been watching a lot of companies who, for weeks, have been making plans to offer employees paid leave or travel stipends to access abortions in the state where-- states where it remains legal. For more on this, let's bring in Yahoo Finance's Allie Garfinkle, who's been watching this. And Allie, obviously, all of this moving very quickly. Give us the breakdown on what companies have already done something. We know there was a leak, so maybe they've already been shifting their policies.

ALLIE GARFINKLE: Absolutely, Brian. Thanks for having me. So these benefits are mostly travel reimbursement coverage related. And they're offering them all over the place. We have Disney, Amazon, Netflix. And the gist of it is, if you work for any of these companies, they want you to be able to go out of state to get an abortion.

And they're willing to offer their employees thousands of dollars to be able to do so. And it's important to note that this is a lot of people, right? Amazon has a million employees, for example. One thing that'll be interesting to see is an expert I talked to actually said that it's possible this will actually become a standard benefit down the line.

AKIKO FUJITA: How much are these companies willing to spend? I mean, you said thousands of dollars. We're talking per employee?

ALLIE GARFINKLE: So, yes, per employee. And, you know, I've seen numbers between 4,000 and 10,000. And the stipulations are different across the board. For instance, the 10,000 that a company like Netflix is willing to offer is going-- is available over a lifetime. The other thing that's kind of important to note about these benefits is that they aren't just for abortions. They also apply to other medical treatments. For instance, if you went out of state to get cancer treatment. But it's also important, make no mistake about it, companies are announcing this because they want to take a stand on Roe versus Wade. There is a reason it's happening now.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Yeah, and that's an important point, I guess, you bring up that it's possible that these types of benefits could be part of, I guess, existing health benefits that maybe these companies are offering. But I guess, what makes this kind of situation so unique is, it's happening at a moment of great news interest. And I guess, I'm wondering if you've seen, alongside these types of policy changes, you know, how are they framing how the corporation is taking a stand on this?

ALLIE GARFINKLE: Yeah, that's a great question, Brian. You know, I've been a business reporter for five years. And I don't remember the last time that I had so many answers so quickly on something. And I think there are kind of two reasons for that. The first is pretty simple. It's the leak. We heard this was happening. They've had time to think about it. They've had time to prepare.

But the other thing about it, too, is I think companies really understand that this is a monumental cultural moment. And it's really not lost on them. And it's not just the largest companies either. Steve Case, who was the former CEO of AOL, actually tweeted today that a bunch of startups in the startup community are worried about this, too. So I think the sentiment that I'm getting is that this is a really important moment. And people want to be there.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Absolutely. Yahoo Finance's Allie Garfinkle, thanks so much.