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Wendell Potter Profile picture
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19 Oct, 7 tweets, 2 min read
Still unvaccinated? There's an increasingly pressing reason – beyond the threat to the health of you and your loved ones – to get the shot against COVID-19: many health insurance companies are no longer waiving out-of-pocket costs for COVID treatment. 1/7
A new study has found 5% of privately insured COVID-19 patients were billed an average of $3,800 between March and Sept 2020, when most insurers *had waived* OOP costs for COVID care. 2/7
modernhealthcare.com/finance/covid-…
At one time, nearly 90% of private health insurers in the U.S. had waived co-pays, coinsurance and deductibles for COVID care. But that number has been dropping since the start of 2021, when vaccines became readily available. 3/7
webmd.com/lung/news/2021…
Tens of millions of Americans who have insurance through their employer or through Medicare Advantage now face thousands of dollars in out of pocket costs if they are hospitalized with COVID. 4/7
healthcarefinancenews.com/news/insurers-…
These decisions by insurers to stop waiving out of pocket costs for COVID care come as they continue to report record profits.

That profiteering has continued into 2021, with UnitedHealth reporting $5.7 billion in profit in Q3 of this year. 5/7
unitedhealthgroup.com/investors.html
Waiving out of pocket costs will drive insurer profits even higher, as the C-suite of America's largest health insurance companies no longer have to pick up the deductible tab for COVID hospitalizations and deaths. 6/7
The moral of the story: get the shot, not simply to preserve your health, but also to ensure you don't shell out thousands of extra dollars to insurance companies who are already making a killing on COVID. 7/7

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More from @wendellpotter

Wendell Potter Profile picture
15 Sep
Today is a big day for me because it’s a major milestone in my decade-long effort to get relief for millions of Americans with health insurance who can’t use it because my former employers have saddled them with out-of-pocket requirements many can’t possibly afford.
My team at @CforHD and I today are joining forces with 17 other organizations to launch the Lower Out-of-Pockets NOW Coalition, built of groups representing patients, doctors, businesses owners, consumers and more.

Find out more about the coalition here: loopcoalition.co
Out of the gate we’re sending letters to Congressional leaders to make sure this is a top priority as they work on budget reconciliation.

Making premiums more affordable is important, but what good is insurance if using it could cost you your home or force you into bankruptcy?
Read 4 tweets
Wendell Potter Profile picture
22 Jul
In a bombshell piece this week, @sarahkliff & @sangerkatz revealed that Americans owe much more in medical debt than previously thought, as collection agencies held $140 billion in unpaid medical bills in 2020.

Here's the crazy part: the real total is WAY higher. Let me explain.
First, as the piece notes, the $140b doesn’t include anywhere close to all the medical bills Americans owe, just debts that have been sold to collection agencies. Not counted are bills patients put on credit cards & try to pay off. Many of those patients will never pay them off.
Another crucially important fact the @nytimes story does not mention is that much of Americans’ medical debt--maybe more than half of it--is owed not by the uninsured... but by people who have health insurance!
Read 11 tweets
Wendell Potter Profile picture
17 Jun
Now that the Supreme Court has once again upheld the Affordable Care Act, lawmakers in Washington and the states must get serious about fixing its flaws and addressing what one Obama administration official called “a huge mistake.”
It’s good that the law enabled 21 million people to get health insurance but 30 million are still uninsured.

The other problem is that 40% of people with Obamacare insurance and 30% with coverage through employers can’t use it b/c of impossibly high out-of-pocket requirements.
That’s the huge mistake that Zeke Emanuel, one of the architects of the law, acknowledged last year. Lawmakers should have known better than to trust health insurers and they should not have allowed the out-of-pocket limit to soar through the stratosphere.
Read 5 tweets
Wendell Potter Profile picture
10 Jun
IMPORTANT: While many of us fought for major reform to our broken health care system (and President Biden campaigned on a public option), nothing has happened on the federal level.

But! Serious action is happening in the states. Most recently: Nevada. Here's why that matters:
The Nevada Option was just signed by its governor, and will lower premiums & cover 350k uninsured Nevadans. The bad news? The fight wasn’t easy, as the industry poured millions into propaganda to confuse voters.

The good news? We now have a blueprint for how to beat them back.
To counter the industry's lies (that are designed to protect their profits), we at @cforhd testified before the legislature, ran ads, wrote op-eds, wrote to legislators, distributed posters & beat them at their own game. The lesson is clear: We can win this battle elsewhere, too.
Read 6 tweets
Wendell Potter Profile picture
19 May
Congrats, America! Two days after Tax Day, you’ve made it to... Deductible Relief Day! 🍾🎉🎊

What's that?

It’s the day where the average person with employer-based health insurance has spent enough on health expenses to finally meet their deductible.
Health insurance deductibles have been rising so rapidly (year after year after year) that the Kaiser Family Foundation (@KFF) decided to track the trend to show how severely Americans are getting ripped off (and sick).

And it’s bad:
healthsystemtracker.org/brief/deductib…
As you might guess, the Deductible Relief Day is being pushed further each year. In 2005, you had to wait until Feb 28. By 2009, you wouldn’t be popping champagne until March 18. In 2019, you had to wait even two months more than that.
Read 9 tweets
Wendell Potter Profile picture
29 Apr
In last night's speech by @POTUS, something stood out to me that was overlooked by many pundits: the president spoke of the NEED to fix sky-high health insurance deductibles immediately. It's not the sexiest topic, but here's why it matters:
Many think that the only ones suffering in this health care system are those without insurance. They're struggling big time, but know who else is? People with BAD insurance. The fact is, millions of Americans can’t use their coverage because their deductibles are so damn high.
These millions of Americans with bad plans don't go to the doctor or get the care they need, like cancer treatments that could save their lives. Why? Because they don’t have enough money to cover their deductible: the amount you have to pay out of pocket before coverage kicks in.
Read 7 tweets

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