Unsurprisingly, health insurers are far closer to villains than heroes on the spectrum of coronavirus responses as they continue their single-minded money grab from consumers. Are there rebates for consumers unable to use their insurance when providers are closed or unavailable for anything but coronavirus-related situations? Nope. Are there extended grace periods for individuals who have lost their jobs and insurance? No.
As a matter of fact, as reported in Salon on April 5, 2020, "Health care insurers expected to raise premiums by as much as 40% to recoup coronavirus losses: Insurance companies may respond to cost increases as high as 21% by hitting individuals with 40% premium hikes," by Igor Derysh, insurers who are putting in requests for premium increases for 2021 beginning next month are expected to put in requests for some hefty increases.
The article includes a warning from Covered California, the California Obamacare marketplace: "'Covered California's analysis shows the impact of COVID-19 will be significant, and that absent federal action, consumers, employers and our entire health care system may be facing unforeseen costs that could exceed $251 billion,' said Peter V. Lee, the executive director of the marketplace. 'Consumers will feel these costs through higher out-of-pocket expenses and premiums, as well as the potential of employers dropping coverage or shifting more costs to employees.'"
What is the insurance lobby doing? Oh, sure, we're hearing how they've been cooperating by, "waiving fees for diagnostic testing for coronavirus," and some insurers are supposedly waiving copayments and coinsurance for treatment of the virus.
However, this week's "Statement by the AHIP Board of Directors: Taking Action to Address Coronavirus COVID-19," promises one thing, health insurers are not changing THEIR behavior and will continue lowering the bar of their performance to maximize their profits.
The insurance company lobby AHIP, in its statement announces that it is addressing "Prevention, testing, and treatment." The insurance lobby promises to cover "diagnostic testing when ordered by a physician," (for coronavirus).
OK, so that's the cost of the coronavirus test, theoretically. Of course, that's if you can get a test, but more importantly it points out that under our current low-bar for health insurer performance, in fact DIAGNOSTIC testing is often NOT covered.
While we preferred to be dazzled by coverages for preventive screenings, etc., under the Obamacare partnership with insurance companies, we neglected to address or acknowledge the UNCOVERED costs of diagnostic testing if those screenings show something requiring additional testing, like an irregular result, etc., often with lower coverage rates percentage-wise for those diagnostic tests.
Interestingly, the health insurers are "covering" these costs as a political gimmick, with no such humanistic concerns about the 10 years of diagnostic testing costs to consumers for cancer or any other diagnostic testing justified by "screening" results.
We then get to the insurers' number two, "Partner with doctors, hospitals, and other care providers to ensure that effective treatment is available for those who are infected," which promises information sharing with providers.
This is a big nothing promise in terms of benefits for consumers and might actually LIMIT the availability for best care as insurers specify that they will use "Care management programs," which is most commonly a means of insurers controlling their costs by limiting acceptable treatments for individuals.
And there's more as the lobbyist memo states that insurers are "…encouraging the use of telehealth, at-home care, and other technology-enabled options to expand access to care and avoid potential risks of infection."
Dial-in help might be useful instead of forcing people to go to and pay for in-office visits for medication renewals, therefore effectively denying individuals whose physician's offices are unavailable for these in-person mandates or exposing them to infection, but they also represent the insurance company agenda of reducing insurance company costs in terms of paying providers whose payments are less for such "telehealth" options.
Interestingly, telehealth has never before been considered for the double-dip requirement that patients get an office visit every three months in order to get prescription renewal for medications, but suddenly it might be "good enough."
And finally, AHIP's third action step is merely the non-insurance action that insurers like calling "education" which by now mostly means that insurance companies identify and blame and penalize individuals for certain lifestyle choices, such as tobacco use, and for things which consumers cannot control, such as age.
Two classes of people Obamacare created a discriminatory exception for in terms of federal government partnering with insurance companies to charge these people more in premiums. While insurers had for decades used different factors such as pre-existing conditions, drug use, hypertension, obesity, etc. to charge individuals more in premiums because statistically they might cost the insurer more in coverage, when Obamacare outlawed any such cost-centered premium increases EXCEPT for tobacco use and age, it effectively chose to DISCRIMINATE against those two groups by prohibiting increased premiums for and ignoring other cost centers.
This is important because AHIP, a lobbying group also states in its coronavirus memo, "We are proactively engaging the American people, particularly those who are most at-risk for infection such as seniors and patients with chronic diseases, on common-sense steps that everyone can take to stay healthy." Consumers are warned, look for the lobbyists working towards legislative changes to the already discriminatory permission granted by the Federal government under Obamacare that older people can be charged up to 1.5 percent of premium charged to everyone else (except tobacco users) including drug users, alcoholics, obese individuals and every other cost center.
This is where the health insurance lobby is going and Federal participation and partnership with the same will cost consumers dearly.
