A Blog by Jonathan Low

 

Oct 10, 2020

What Trump's Covid Treatment Would Cost Ordinary Citizens

The bill is a big one - and watch for that helicopter ride to and from the hospital; it's a whopper. JL

Sarah Kliff reports in the New York Times:

President Trump spent three days in the hospital. He arrived and left by helicopter. And he received multiple coronavirus tests, oxygen, steroids and an experimental antibody treatment. For someone who isn’t president, that would cost more than $100,000 in the American health system. The median charge for a coronavirus hospitalization for a patient over 60 is $61,912.The biggest billing risk for a patient receiving treatment similar to Mr. Trump’s would come from helicopter rides to the hospital.The median charge for an air ambulance is $38,770. Mr. Trump's costs of care are covered by the federal government.

President Trump spent three days in the hospital. He arrived and left by helicopter. And he received multiple coronavirus tests, oxygen, steroids and an experimental antibody treatment.

For someone who isn’t president, that would cost more than $100,000 in the American health system. Patients could face significant surprise bills and medical debt even after health insurance paid its share.

The biggest financial risks would come not from the hospital stay but from the services provided elsewhere, including helicopter transit and repeated coronavirus testing.

Mr. Trump has praised the high quality of care he received at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and has played down the risk of the virus. “Don’t be afraid of Covid,” Mr. Trump tweeted on Monday, before returning to the White House. “Don’t let it dominate your life.”

Across the country, patients have struggled with both the long-term health and financial effects of contracting coronavirus. Nearly half a million have been hospitalized. Routine tests can result in thousands of dollars in uncovered charges; hospitalized patients have received bills upward of $400,000.

Mr. Trump did not have to worry about the costs of his care, which are covered by the federal government. Most Americans, including many who carry health coverage, do worry about receiving medical care they cannot afford.

For some Americans, the bills could start mounting with frequent tests. Insurers are generally required to pay for those tests when physicians order them, but not when employers do.

The Trump administration made that clear in June, when it issued guidance stating that insurers do not have to pay for “testing conducted to screen for general workplace health and safety.” Instead, patients need to pay for that type of testing themselves. Some might be able to get free tests at public sites, and some employers may voluntarily cover the costs. Others could face significant medical debt from tests delivered at hospitals or urgent care centers.

Covid tests can be expensive. Although they typically cost $100, one emergency room in Texas has charged as much as $6,408 for a drive-through test. About 2.4 percent of coronavirus tests billed to insurers leave the patient responsible for some portion of payment, according to the health data firm Castlight. With 108 million tests performed in the United States, that could amount to millions of tests that leave patients responsible for some share of the cost.

Marta Bartan, who works as a hair colorist in Brooklyn, needed a coronavirus test to return to her job this summer. She received a $1,394 bill from the hospital running the drive-through site where she was tested.

“I was so confused,” said Ms. Bartan, who is contesting the bill. “You go in to get a Covid test expecting it to be free. What could they have possibly charged me $1,400 for?”

The bills for the typical American would continue at the hospital, with the routine monitoring that any patient would receive and the drugs provided in the course of care.

Remdesivir, a new coronavirus treatment created by Gilead, costs $3,120 when purchased by private insurers and $2,340 with public programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

Mr. Trump also received an experimental antibody treatment from Regeneron. It’s currently available to clinical trial participants or to those granted a “compassionate use” exemption. In either situation, the drug would typically be provided to the patient at no charge. This will most likely change, however, when the treatment finishes trials and hits the commercial market. These types of drugs are hard to manufacture, and other monoclonal antibodies cost thousands of dollars.

Health economists are only starting to understand the full costs of coronavirus treatment, just as scientists are mapping out how the disease works and spreads. They do have some early estimates: The median charge for a coronavirus hospitalization for a patient over 60 is $61,912, according to a claims database, FAIR Health.

That figure includes any medical care during the hospital stay, such as an emergency room visit that led to admission or drugs provided by the hospital.

For insured patients, that price would typically be negotiated lower by their health plan. FAIR Health estimates that the median amount paid is $31,575. That amount, like most things in American health care, varies significantly from one patient to another.

In the FAIR Health data on coronavirus patients over 60, a quarter face charges less than $26,821 for their hospital stay. Another quarter face charges higher than $193,149, in part because of longer stays.

Many, but not all, health insurers have said they will not apply co-payments or deductibles to patients’ coronavirus hospital stays, which could help shield patients from large bills.Uninsured patients, however, could be stuck with the entire hospital charges and not receive any discounts. While the Trump administration did set up a fund to cover coronavirus testing and treatment costs for the uninsured, The Times has reported that some Americans without health insurance have received large bills for their hospital stays.

The biggest billing risk for a patient receiving treatment similar to Mr. Trump’s would probably come from helicopter rides to the hospital.

Air ambulances are expensive and often not in major health insurance plans’ networks. The median charge for an air ambulance is $38,770, according to a study in the journal Health Affairs published this year. When the helicopter trip is out of network — as about three-quarters of them are — patients are left with a median charge of $21,698 after the insurance payout.

Taking two helicopter rides, as Mr. Trump did, could plausibly result in more than $40,000 in medical debt for patients without access to their own aircraft (though of course most people do not leave the hospital by helicopter).

The financial consequences of a coronavirus hospitalization could be long-lasting, if a new Supreme Court challenge to the Affordable Care Act is successful. That case argues that all of Obamacare is unconstitutional, including the health law’s protections for pre-existing conditions. The administration filed a brief in June supporting the challenge.

The Supreme Court hears that case on Nov. 10. If the challenge succeeds, Covid-19 could join a long list of pre-existing conditions that would leave patients facing higher premiums or denials of coverage. In that case, coronavirus survivors could face a future in which their hospital stays increase their health costs for years to come.



1 comments:

Robert Earl said...

HAVE YOU LOST YOUR HARD EARNED FUNDS TO THE WRONG HANDS?
MEET THE PROFESSIONAL HACKERS FOR HIRE TODAY.
⏱️ 3min Read
📁 Hiring a professional hacker has been one of the world's most technical valued navigating information.
Regarding:
•Recovery Of Lost Funds,
•Mobile Phone Hack.(Catching A Cheating Spouse).
•Credit Score Upgrade,
VARIOUS HACKTIVITIES via
leroysteckler@gmail.com
High prolific information and Priviledges comes rare as it has been understood that what people do not see, they will never know. The affirmative ability to convey a profitable information Systematically is the majoy factor to success.
Welcome to the Global KOS hacking agency where every request on hacking related issues are fixed within a short period of time.
When you wonder “which hacking company should I hire, the first aspect that should concern you is Sincerity. Secondly, Rapid response. Clearly, you want to embark for services that povides swift response, With our astonishing Hackers, you will be glad to find out that our services Implies precision and action.
This post is definitely for those who are willing to turn their lives around for the better, either financial-wise, relationship-wise or businesses.
The manual Operation of this hackers is to potentially deploy a distinguished hacking techniques to penetrating computers.
If your shoe fits in any of the services below, you will be assigned to a designated professional hacker who is systematically known for operating on a dark web V-link protocol.
Providing value added services to clients as a hacker has been our sustaining goal.
Are you faced with cyber challenges like
💰Recovery of lost funds:✅(BITCOIN INVESTMENTS, BINARY OPTIONS, LOAN AND TRADING FOREX WITH FORGERY BROKERS.) 🖥️I would try my possible best to shortly explain this in particular.
This shocking study points to one harsh reality we all face today. It saddens our mind when client expresses annoyance or dissatisfaction of unethical behaviours of scammers. We have striven to make tenacious efforts to help those who are victims of this flees get off their traumatic feeling of loss. The cyber security technique used to retrieving back the victims stolen funds is the application of a diverse intercall XX breacher software enables you track the data location of a scammer. Extracting every informations on the con database. Every information required by the Global KOS would be used to tracking every transaction, time and location of the scammer. This is acheived using the systematic courier tracking base method•
However, there are secret cyber infiltrators called brokers and doom. The particular system used by this scammers permeates them to manupulate targets digital trading system or monetary fund based accounts. Strictly using a dark web rob to diverting successful trades into a negative outcome. This process bends to thier advantage while investors results to losing massive amount of money. An act of gaining access to an organization or databased system to cause damages. We have worked so hard to ensure our services gives you a 100% trading success to recover all your losses•
📲 HACKING A MOBILE PHONE:.✅ Do you think you are being cheated on? Curious to know what your lover is up to online? This type of hack helps you track every movement of your cheater as we are bent on helping you gain full remote access into the cheater's mobile phone using a Trojan breach cracking system to penetrate their social media platforms like Facebook, whatsapp, snapchat etc.
The company is large enough to provide comprehensive range of services such as•
• Email hacks📲
• Hacking of websites.📲
• Uber free payment hacks.📲
Our strength is based on the ability to help fix cyber problems by bringing together active cyber hacking professionals in the GlobalkOS to work with.
Contact:
✉️Email: theglobalkos@gmail.com
Leroysteckler@gmail.com
®Global KOS™
2020.

Post a Comment