Good. COVID is a virus that will be with us forevermore. It is time to treat it like we would any other malady.

In 2020, as the pandemic took hold, U.S. health insurance companies declared they would cover 100% of the costs for covid treatment, waiving co-pays and expensive deductibles for hospital stays that frequently range into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

 

But this year, most insurers have reinstated co-pays and deductibles for covid patients, in many cases even before vaccines became widely available. The companies imposed the costs as industry profits remained strong or grew in 2020, with insurers paying out less to cover elective procedures that hospitals suspended during the crisis.

Remember that whenever insurance covers anything 100%, all that means is that all premium payers are picking up the full bill.