I’m an insurance baby. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of a life actuary/lawyer, I met my husband while we both worked at the Travelers Insurance Company. My husband (now retired) spent much of his career as a health insurance underwriter. In my family, discussions about risk management are common and there is some genuine expertise to be found among my relatives.
Because of that background, I say this with confidence: insurance companies and lawyers are going to provide a very important boost in the next six months to America’s COVID vaccine resistance problem. How?
Employers have already litigated the question of requiring employees to be subjected to drug testing, both as a condition of hire and as a random event to ensure compliance with policy. If an employer is vulnerable to being sued for transmitting a deadly virus, they’re going to require that employees be vaccinated. This isn’t an issue that falls under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) as some are alleging. That has to do with your medical provider sharing your information.
Insurance companies have offered safe driving discounts for many years. They don’t have to refuse to cover drivers with many accidents, they just charge them more. The point system that penalizes drivers for moving violations and driving while impaired is well known to licensed drivers.
Likewise, it’s likely that when unvaccinated Americans go to enroll in or renew their health insurance this fall via the healthcare.gov exchange, they’re going to find a new question is added to “What’s your age?” and “Do you use tobacco?” That question will be “Are you vaccinated against COVID-19?”
If the answer is no or an applicant cannot provide evidence of their vaccination, they will be assessed a surcharge and it could be a whopper.
Hospitals are certainly examining their history of the last 18 months and looking at who is getting admitted, spending extending periods in their intensive care units and, of course, who is dying while in their care.
According to a report in Healthcare Finance News, inpatient COVID-19 hospitalizations were estimated to cost the U.S. healthcare system between $9.6 billion and $16.9 billion in 2020.
As we go through the coming months, restaurants, medical providers and all sorts of companies that serve the public are going to make a big shift, I believe, into a position of self-certifying that they have taken every precaution in protecting the public they serve. The companies that remain open and profitable with be those that require vaccines for workers.
Last March and April, the scramble was on for who could get vaccinated and America’s have and have-not divide was in sharp relief. People without easy internet access and great healthcare access were getting left behind. That is no good for all of us.
Now, the nagging question is how do we incent those remaining unvaccinated folks to “see the light” and get their shot? Some of it is continuously educating them. Insults don’t help. For some, though, it may be less important to see the light than it is to feel the heat. Financial and social pressure do have an effect.
When I came to North Carolina in the late 1970’s, this was Tobacco Road. Now there is nowhere in Durham where you can smoke inside, except your own home. That took many years and many lawsuits. Frankly, we don’t have that kind of time. We should be past this pandemic by now and the solution is readily available.
Conservative writer David Frum says it well in “The Atlantic” for those of us who have worn our masks, washed our hands and rolled up our sleeves: Vaccinated America has had enough.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97-9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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