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An alternative, market-powered fix: lift the regulatory statues that prevent insurance companies from raising the cost of coverage of their unvaccinated custome

An alternative, market-powered fix: lift the regulatory statues that prevent insurance companies from raising the cost of coverage of their unvaccinated customers.

nickthemagicman 5y ago
400 people died of Covid...out of 350 million yesterday. How much do you think the actuaries would increase insurance cost for numbers like that? Doesn't seem like that's a huge risk increase. And 90% of those are in the above 75 years old age group with the highest maximum risk calculated in already. I bet there's not a single actuary that is worried about Covid.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  COVID is still currently a major cause of death, so there's that.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Average cost of hospital care for COVID-19 ranges from $51,000 to $78,000, based on age. https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/average-cost-hospital-care-covid-19-ranges-51000-78000-based-age https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/average-cost-hosp... (Nov 2020) Vaccination reduces the risk of hospitalisation by 25x. (CDC data, 29 July 2021, leaked report). I don't have good data on hospitalisations, though for quite some time early in the pandemic it was about 15% of all detected cases. I strongly suspect it's lower than that now (nonsymptomatic / low-severity cases are now detected), but it's still substantial. Just on a per-person basis, that's about 50-65 large you're looking at in excess claims for shunning the vaccine. The actuarial risk is probably on the order of 10% of that, though you'd need to add in other costs and long-term health consequences. Severe cases can of course run far higher --- some patients have had double-lung transplants.
  - nickthemagicman 5y ago
    So 50k a patient times 7,000 patients a day? That 325 million a day... 119 billion a year. I change my mind. You all are correct. We should definitely raise the price of insurance for Covid. It would eliminate people unnecessarily going to the hospital, and getting frivolous treatment...and would give a more accurate number of people who actually need hospitalization. If you go to the hospital for the sniffles and test positive for Covid, the hospital will put you in a bed for two weeks for monitoring... because it's profitable.

An alternative, market-powered fix: lift the regulatory statues that prevent insurance companies from raising the cost of coverage of their unvaccinated customers.

nickthemagicman 5y ago

400 people died of Covid...out of 350 million yesterday. How much do you think the actuaries would increase insurance cost for numbers like that? Doesn't seem like that's a huge risk increase. And 90% of those are in the above 75 years old age group with the highest maximum risk calculated in already. I bet there's not a single actuary that is worried about Covid.

thehappypm 5y ago
COVID is still currently a major cause of death, so there's that.
dredmorbius 5y ago
Average cost of hospital care for COVID-19 ranges from $51,000 to $78,000, based on age. https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/average-cost-hospital-care-covid-19-ranges-51000-78000-based-age https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/average-cost-hosp... (Nov 2020) Vaccination reduces the risk of hospitalisation by 25x. (CDC data, 29 July 2021, leaked report). I don't have good data on hospitalisations, though for quite some time early in the pandemic it was about 15% of all detected cases. I strongly suspect it's lower than that now (nonsymptomatic / low-severity cases are now detected), but it's still substantial. Just on a per-person basis, that's about 50-65 large you're looking at in excess claims for shunning the vaccine. The actuarial risk is probably on the order of 10% of that, though you'd need to add in other costs and long-term health consequences. Severe cases can of course run far higher --- some patients have had double-lung transplants.
- nickthemagicman 5y ago
  So 50k a patient times 7,000 patients a day? That 325 million a day... 119 billion a year. I change my mind. You all are correct. We should definitely raise the price of insurance for Covid. It would eliminate people unnecessarily going to the hospital, and getting frivolous treatment...and would give a more accurate number of people who actually need hospitalization. If you go to the hospital for the sniffles and test positive for Covid, the hospital will put you in a bed for two weeks for monitoring... because it's profitable.