Cigna has been among several health insurance companies already benefitting from a special enrollment period that ended Aug. 15 for Americans to sign up for coverage under the ACA. More than 2 million Americans had signed up for such coverage as of a month ago.
The current COVID-19 wave in the U.S. is mostly affecting unvaccinated Americans, who represent more than 95% of current cases of hospitalization and death. Given the average cost of a COVID-19 hospitalization in 2020 ran about US$42,200 per patient, will the unvaccinated be asked to bear more of the cost of treatment, in terms of insurance, as well?
After it became clear that the public option wasn't going to pass last spring, lawmakers supported a plan to devote $23.6 million to the "Covered Connecticut Program," an effort to provide free health coverage through the ACA exchange to as many as 40,000 qualifying people. The program launched in July.
Data from the hospitals that have complied hints at why the powerful industries wanted this information to remain hidden. It shows hospitals are charging patients wildly different amounts for the same basic services: procedures as simple as an X-ray or a pregnancy test. And it provides numerous examples of major health insurers — some of the world’s largest companies, with billions in annual profits — negotiating surprisingly unfavorable rates for their customers.
President Biden announced Wednesday he is ordering the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to require nursing homes to have vaccinated staff for them to be able to participate in Medicare and Medicaid and receive funding from the federal programs. The vaccination requirement will be the first time the federal government has implemented any type of vaccination requirement besides those for federal government employees.