People who choose not to get a COVID-19 shot may face higher healthcare costs related to COVID-19. For the first 1.5 years of the pandemic, health insurance companies typically pay for all costs related to COVID-19, waiving deductibles and copays across the board.first Policies have changed since then, with many private insurers no longer tabbing for hospitalizations and other costs related to COVID-19.
However, those who have not yet received COVID-19 may have to pay the most. While health insurers can’t deny someone health coverage because they didn’t get a COVID-19 shot, they’ll likely face increased costs – similar to those smokers, who also have to pay health insurance premiums.
Delta airlines pave the way for cost hikes
On August 25, 2021, Delta Air Lines announced that employees on the company’s health plan who were not vaccinated against COVID-19 will receive an additional $200 monthly surcharge. In the two weeks after Delta made the announcement, 20% of Delta’s unvaccinated employees were vaccinated, bringing the company’s injection rate from 74% to 78%.2
The surcharge went into effect on November 1, 2021, and through October 29, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian announced that more than 90% of employees had received a strike.3 In an employee memo, Bastian defended the substantial premium increase for unvaccinated employees, saying, “Average hospital stay for COVID-19 has cost Delta $50,000 for each person. This surcharge will be necessary to address the financial risk that the decision not to vaccinate is creating for our company.”4
Other companies have followed suit. In January 2022, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) announced that public employees in Nevada, along with their adult dependents, would be charged an additional fee under the insurance program. state health insurance if they don’t get a COVID-19 shot by July. Year 2022.5
A September 2021 survey by SHRM found that nearly 20% of companies are considering increasing health insurance premiums for employees who are not vaccinated. Among organizations, 13% were considering such a move while less than 1% had actually increased premiums for unvaccinated employees at the time.6
In another example, Mercyhealth, which operates hospitals and health clinics in Wisconsin and Illinois, began deducting $60 per month from employees’ wages if they chose not to inject. While Alen Brcic, Mercyhealth’s vice president of people and culture, calls the so-called “risk group fee” a nominal amount, it has pushed up the health system’s vaccination rates among the population. members up to 91%, from 70% before.7
“A small number of people quit because of the policy and about 9% of employees are currently contributing to the risk. Mercyhealth provided a very small number of medical exemptions, but no religious exemptions,” NPR reported.8
Health plan loopholes allow increased costs for some
Several federal laws — including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA) — prohibit health plans from Health groups and insurance companies discriminate against individuals based on health factors.
While short-term health plans, which are not subject to the ACA regulations, can deny coverage to someone because they have not been immunized against COVID-19, private health insurers cannot. Furthermore, insurers that are part of the individual market cannot charge penalty fees to those who are not immunized.9
However, wellness programs offer a work around. By making COVID-19 injections a requirement of the company’s wellness program,ten For example, Delta can deal with legal issues,11 because they “reward” health plan members by letting them avoid the premium surcharge for unvaccinated people.
JPMorgan Chase and Harmons have also used the wellness program guidelines as a tool to increase healthcare premiums for workers who were not vaccinated against COVID-19. “Under federal law, companies are allowed to charge employees for health care varying amounts of money as long as they do so through a program designed to promote healthy behaviors and prevent disease prevention,” NPR reported.twelfth
A wellness program can include almost anything, from achieving a certain number of daily steps to quitting smoking or staying within a certain BMI range. Sabrina Corlette, founder and co-director of the Center for Health Insurance Reform at Georgetown University, tells NPR, “Your health care plan could be as simple as: I would encourage all employees. their members go to vaccination, stop completely.
Most employers are doing this to try to have a healthier and more productive workforce…and spend less on overall healthcare costs. “13
There are some caveats. For example, the ACA regulations state that surcharges in employer health plans for things like COVID-19 immunization status are allowed, as long as they are not discriminatory. treat people with disabilities.14 NPR broke the health plan waiver this way:15
“Under federal law, a health plan must be ‘reasonably designed,’ which means there is a reasonable chance the program will improve health or prevent disease in its participants. To ensure that health care plans do not violate discriminatory laws, companies must provide waivers to individuals whose medical reasons are not meeting stated goals or alternatives. for them to meet the requirements.
As part of its policy, Harmons, the Utah grocer says a premium surcharge of up to $200 per month applies to ‘unvaccinated associates who are not eligible for coverage. waived or chose not to complete a series of vaccine education programs.’ “
Rewards and penalties for health plans cannot exceed 30% of the cost of employee wellness plans, “measured by the amount paid by the employee and employer.” combined”, except in cases involving tobacco use – fines can be up to 50% of the cost.16
Fines for Immunizations A Slippery Slope
Governments around the globe have also introduced fines for refusing to shoot COVID-19. Greece has announced it will fine anyone 60 or older who don’t get the shot, at about $114 a month.17 The Canadian province of Quebec has also announced plans to fine people “significant” amounts of money for those who have not been vaccinated.18
“There is a point where these incentives [are getting] Julie Downs, a social psychologist and associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, told the AAMC. “It works, but it comes at a cost… [and it’s] very difficult in this political environment. ”19
Dr Mark Fendrick, director of the University of Michigan’s Center for Value-Based Insurance Design, described the penalties for not vaccinating as “legitimately murky”.20 while others have described it as compulsion. While health insurance companies have long charged higher premiums based on factors like smoking, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission requires that penalties not be too large to be coercive.21
One of the principles of the Nuremberg Code is that people must voluntarily consent to participate in medical experiments and that consent must be given, among other things, “without interference of any kind force, fraud, deception, coercion, excessive gain, or other covert binding or coercion. “22
Authorization for emergency use, but not approval of, mass regulatory authority constitutes a research trial. While the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 shot received FDA approval on August 23, 2021, the injection’s approval represents the fastest approval in history,23 granted less than four months after Pfizer applied for the license on May 7, 2021.24 So for all intents and purposes, it’s still in the research phase.
Daniel Polsky, PhD, an economist with the Johns Hopkins Blomberg School of Public Health and the Carey School of Business, further notes that penalties based on immunization status should not dictate health care coverage. , this also shouldn’t be fine for showing a person is at fault when sick. He told the AAMC:25
“[For example,] we have this obesity crisis and some people will say, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t pay for the care, it’s the person’s fault for being obese or being an addict. If someone gets sick with COVID – we should withhold care money. ‘… It’s a slippery slope and not where we should be. ”
Natural immunity is ignored
If you already have COVID-19, research shows that you are well protected against reinfection. New data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention even shows that prior COVID-19 infection, i.e., innate immunity, is more protective than COVID-19 injections.26
Even so, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) recently upheld the vaccine requirement at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a division of the US Department of Health and Human Services. This mandate affects 10.4 million healthcare workers working in 76,000 healthcare facilities,27 There is no exception for people with natural immunity to COVID-19 due to previous infection.
Dr Kevin Volpp, director of the Center for Health Promotion and Behavioral Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, told AAMC: “You can think of tasks as the most powerful form of incentive. “What we have seen so far in an employer environment where there is a duty to keep your job is that very few employees have failed to comply.”28
However, when researchers looked at studies published in PubMed, they found that the risk of reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 decreased from 80.5% to 100% in people who had previously had COVID- 19.29 Additional research cited in their review shows:30
- Of the 9,119 people who were previously infected with COVID-19, only 0.7% were re-infected.
- At the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, the prevalence of COVID-19 in previously uninfected individuals was 4.3 per 100; the incidence of COVID-19 among people who have been previously infected is 0 per 100 people.
- The frequency of hospitalizations for repeat COVID-19 infections is 5 per 14,840, or 0.03%, according to an Austrian study; The frequency of death from repeated infections is one in 14,840 people, or 0.01%.
In short, if you already have COVID-19, you will be largely protected from reinfection, and getting a COVID-19 shot is not only unnecessary but, according to some experts, especially dangerous.thirty first Punishing those who refuse to shoot COVID-19 they don’t want or need becomes especially brutal in such cases. Unvaccinated individuals should have the freedom to remain so, if that is what they choose, and not be forced into this medical decision by threats and financial coercion.
