NYT opinion: Don't Want a Vaccine? Be Prepared to Pay More for Insurance

[DBoon]

In 2020, before there were Covid-19 vaccines, most major private insurers waived patient payments — from coinsurance to deductibles — for Covid treatment. But many if not most have allowed that policy to lapse. Aetna, for example, ended that policy on Feb. 28; UnitedHealthcare began rolling back its waivers late last year and discontinued them by the end of March.

More than 97 percent of hospitalized patients last month were unvaccinated. Though the vaccines will not necessarily prevent you from catching the coronavirus, they are highly effective at assuring you will have a milder case and are kept out of the hospital.

For this reason, there’s logic behind insurers’ waiver rollback: Why should patients be kept financially unharmed from what is now a preventable hospitalization, thanks to a vaccine that the government paid for and made available for free? It is now in many drugstores, popping up at highway rest stops and bus stops and can be delivered and administered at home in parts of the country.

...

But insurers could try to do more, like penalizing the unvaccinated. And there is precedent. Already, some policies won’t cover treatment that results from what insurance companies deem risky behavior, such as scuba diving and rock climbing.

The Affordable Care Act allows insurers to charge smokers up to 50 percent more than what nonsmokers pay for some types of health plans. Four-fifths of states in the U.S. follow that protocol, though most employer-based plans do not do so. In 49 states, people who are caught driving without auto insurance face fines, confiscation of their car, loss of their license and even jail. And reckless drivers pay more for insurance.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/opinion/health-insurance-unvaccinated.html

Yes, there is a paywall, but I understand the NYT allows a certain number of free articles per month

[GoodRaisin]

1. All the insurance companies have to do is treat the un-vaccinated like they do a 60+ year old

on the cost of their premiums and that will shock a lot of these self proclaimed "constitutionally privileged" anti-vaxers into getting their damn shots.

[kysrsoze]

2. I've been saying for a while, the fix is... without proof of vaccine, you're not covered. Not sure

whether they can technically drop you or not cover it, but this seems it would have the same effect. No vaccine, rates double.

[Mme. Defarge]

3. Absolument!

Why would they not?

[Hortensis]

4. Carriers will raise premiums for higher risk. Some group insurances

might protect unvaxed employees for a while, just as many of those employers are holding off requiring vaccination, because of labor shortages and the emotional subject, but! Or not.

Turns out, big surprise, that unvaxed are less likely to be insured at all than vaxed and more likely to be lower-income earners, often in blue collar-type jobs where vax rates are lower in general.

It would help if more of them knew THIS: "before there were Covid-19 vaccines, most major private insurers waived patient payments — from coinsurance to deductibles — for Covid treatment. But many if not most have allowed that policy to lapse."

The possibility of stacks of unpaid medical bills should be a BIG stick.