Rich Fuerstenberg | Source | Senior Partner - Life, Absence and Disability national practice at Mercer LLC

Obviously, income continuation due not only to illness, but also for employees who are healthy but unable to work is critically important. Some employers won’t be able to continue income for the latter group for an extended period of time, if at all, especially for hourly employees in low-margin industries. For those employees, continuation of health benefits—likely without employee contributions since there may be no pay from which to take contributions—will be valuable at a time when those with a COVID-19 diagnosis may need to access care.