So my personal view is if you can safely get a Covid shot, and you choose not to, then you shouldn’t have any insurance coverage when you get sick from Covid.
I’m unfamiliar with the US healthcare system, but could an insurer do this, i.e simply not pay the costs for people who choose not to protect themselves?
In Canada I’d like to do this, but it’s harder in a government single payer setup.
Note, I wouldn’t deny coverage for people who had a medical reason they couldn’t be vaccinated, just for those who chose not to be.
I don’t think an insurance company could deny coverage to somone who hadn’t gotten the vaccine. Certainly not unless it was written into the contract, and I such a contract might not be approved.
Your 100% causality argument fails for Covid, if you are claiming that with 100% certainty you do not get Covid if vacccinated.
There are some states that outlaw this. Mostly tobacco growing states.
Still, it is a choice that has medical consequences, similar to your proposal. Why should I pay for the treatment of someone’s lung cancer caused by cigarette smoking?
I’m just wondering what other kinds of freedumbs could be restricted, and whether you agree with them.
I’m not entirely opposed to this, but the difference is smokers can get lung cancer from causes other than smoking. If you get Covid, you got it from the Covid virus.
What about (I hate whatabouting, but it’s the internet, so…) “I don’t wanna wear helmet” motorcycle guy gets in an accident?
Quick note: I agree with you, but in the USA, I’m unsure how it could be implemented and enforced. Heck, we had mask mandates and several local police jurisdictions wouldn’t even enforce it.
I mean, someone (doctors, nurses) will have to try to save people, and they cost hospitals money, and the people getting treatment won’t have that money. So, hospitals will raise the rates of insurers and their “rack rates” to compensate. I (The American Public) end up paying anyway in higher insurance premiums and/or medical costs.
The way to save money (if that’s the goal) is not to admit them (choosers-non-vaccinated getting COVID), and let them die. And that’s not very nice.
sounds like the opinion of a privileged white person. black americans are less likely to get the vaccine than white americans because black people have a very rational distrust of the american government with how they were treated in the past. so, you say, just let them die if they get covid, huh?
We are in the “carrot” phase at the moment. Lottery giveaways, concerts for vaxxed-only (and yes, there were protesters at it), etc.
I know of one person who found out someone she knew got hospitalized. She went and got vaccinated because of it. Maybe we need more Facebook stories from real people. I have a friend whose father, after being hospitalized since February, is just now getting around, albeit with an oxygen tank. This is after he lost his wife (my friend’s mother) to COVID, when they were both hospitalized. Neither vaccinated, btw, and with other risk factors, but were eligible.
I hear you, and I know some of the things that have happened in the past, but does anyone really believe that if they go in for the same Covid shot that millions of white people have already gotten, that they are actually going to end up with a different treatment or something? This isn’t the 1960’s.
I’m not sure, but I think that’s part of the reason the black community doesn’t trust the vaccine. I don’t think I’m able to really opine on this as someone who isn’t black.
Anyway, people have reasons for not taking it, and it’s not always because they are a MAGA blowhard, where I have less sympathy for those people.
It’s an interesting point I hadn’t thought of. 538 did a post that the issue is more lack of convenient availability than vaccine hesitancy. I’m picturing insurance rate differences only when the vaccine is widely available.
Yup, that is what I have heard isbthe primary reason now.
Not being able to take the time off of work for the potential recovery day.
Not having access to child care if they are knocked out for that day.
A lot of things along those lines.
When you are working 7 days a week and multiple jobs, you don’t exactly have time off for the vaccine.
Mr Fritz’s article is from back in March when supplies were more limited & distribution less widespread.
More recent articles have pointed to the reasons you list here around lack of time off both to get the shot & deal with the possible short term side effects.
That jibes with a relatively recent story I think I saw in the NY Times that when you control for other factors like education or socioeconomic status, there’s not a significant difference in vaccination rates or ‘hesitancy’ by race.
