Starbucks healthcare benefits ‘literally saved our family’

When I first started at Starbucks, I was 18 years old and didn’t fully realize what an amazing benefits package I was being offered. I wasn’t thinking about health insurance at the time because I was still covered under my parents’ plan.  As I got older, had kids and began providing for my family, I realized I had access to benefits my mom never had during her entire working life. 

That’s when I really saw how important benefits are, and started comparing the Starbucks benefits package to other companies. Not just the medical, dental and vision, but also 401(k) options and stock grants that make us partners and not just employees. I shared all this with my mom, and was thrilled in 2016 when she became a barista. At 50 years old, for the first time in her life, she has access to the benefits and insurance everybody deserves. She had been missing out on this her whole life.   

A year later, those benefits literally saved our family.  

My mom had been a partner for about a year and a half when she was diagnosed with tongue and neck cancer. The cancer was taking up two-thirds of her tongue. She needed to have immediate surgery. Reconstructing her tongue involved multiple surgeons and a 17-hour surgery. Having that health insurance allowed us to seek the best treatment and to be fierce fighters against the cancer. 

She just celebrated seven years of remission!