With the increasing financial cost of treating unvaccinated people when they contract the emerging coronavirus, medical insurance providers are now asking people with the disease to share the cost of their treatment, which can become expensive if an extended hospital stay is required.
Early in the pandemic, most private insurers waived cost-sharing for patients under their plans or even covered the full cost of treatment. Co-insurance or discount payments - if they are hospitalized due to COVID-19, according to an analysis by the KFF.
But with effective coronavirus vaccines becoming widely available, most insurance companies are no longer compromising those costs, according to CBS News.
To that end, Delta Air Lines said this week that it will charge unvaccinated employees an additional $200 a month for health coverage, as the insurance company's earnings have soared during the pandemic, as consumers skip routine care and increase the demand for additional optional procedures.
“Medical insurers were spending much less than expected because during the pandemic no one went to hospital, elective procedures were delayed and insurance companies had more money than they were supposed to,” said Matthew Ray, director of the healthcare program.
Today, by contrast, more than 70 percent of the nation's largest insurers are no longer waiving costs for COVID-19 treatment, according to the Kaiser Foundation, which surveyed the two largest insurers in each state and Washington, D.C., with another 10 percent planning phases of... Share costs by the end of October.
The rationale on which these companies base their decision is simple: subsidizing treatment for COVID-19 patients runs counter to efforts to encourage Americans to seek preventive care for the disease.
The hospitalization rate for unvaccinated corona patients is 29 times lower than for vaccinated patients, according to a report from the (CDC), and Ray told CBS in this regard: “Now that it is largely preventable for most adults, Covid-19 is largely preventable.” If employers push people so hard to get vaccinated, it makes sense for those employers to give people who get infected a break.”
However, patients will not be responsible for the full cost of treatment, which can be up to $50,000 in severe illness, and fully insured patients hospitalized with pneumonia - which includes similar treatment for people with coronavirus - usually end up paying around 1,300. dollar.
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