Posted by Michael Wonder on 05 Jul 2020
The health of private insurance in the US during COVID-19
2 July 2020 - In an insurance based health system, it’s insurers who foot the bill for pandemic care.
Early in the pandemic, US health insurers planned to treat COVID-19 just like any other medical condition: in general, people pay a percentage of costs that their plan deems legitimate.
That changed on 10 March, with good news for patients. The US vice president, Mike Pence, told reporters that the nation’s private and government insurance programs would change the way they did business. “All of our major health insurance companies have now joined with Medicare and Medicaid and agreed to waive all copayments [and] cover all treatments for those who contract the coronavirus,” he said. “They’ve committed to no surprise billing, and they’ve committed to encouraging telemedicine.”
