Honorable Congressman Raul Ruiz :<\/p>\n
We hope this letter finds you well. Our names We are all Health Service Administration students at Florida International University approaching graduation in the middle of this mayhem known as the COVID-19 pandemic. We speak with a sense of certainty when we assume that most of us, if not all of us, have been affected by the pandemic, apart from being locked down. Whether it being personally infected or having a loved one infected, most have been affected by this terrible pandemic. With disease comes treatments which can be costly, the median cost being $3,045 per symptomatic infection (Bartsch, et. Al, 2020).\u00a0The average cost of hospital care for COVID-19 patients without insurance or who receive out-of-network care varies greatly by age \u2013 from $51,389 for patients between 21- and 40-years-old to $78,569 for patients between 41 and 60 years old, according to updated cost analysis data from FAIR Health (Hackett, 2020).<\/p>\n
We believe that the creation of this law and regulations for managing our health system is necessary for our country because we face an unexpected pandemic. Thanks to these regulations, the effectiveness in the COVID-19 tests would be increased since Government would allow more places to be opened and thus to be able to isolate patients with COVID-19 in time. So, with full transparency, we were very pleased to hear that there was someone as passionate as yourself considering a proposal to support those in need of coverage from private health insurance plans. The new ordinance is designed to aid those who have been diagnosed with or are presumed to have, COVID-19. It has been a common discussion regarding the inaccessibility to adequate coverage for the treatment of COVID-19 with the use of private health care plans. <\/p>\n
As we look into the purpose behind this proposed bill, there are many reasons why we support it. According to research, there is no federal mandate stating that private insurers are required to waive any cost associated with approved COVID-19 testing and treatments. Most people with private insurance end up paying high deductibles and copays. This results in the unfortunate situation of leaving them with the symptoms and panic of COVID-19 due to being unable to afford these costs. Based on Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker, earlier in the pandemic, approximately 88% of citizens enrolled in \u201cfully-insured private health plans\u201d; despite this, these citizens would have their \u201cout-of-pocket costs waived if they were hospitalized with COVID-19\u201d (Ortaliza, Cox, McGough, Amin, & Rae, para. 2, 2021). With the changes going on regarding COVID-19 and the new vaccines being put out, it has been discovered that \u201c72% of the two largest insurers\u2026are no longer waiving these costs.\u201d As well as by October, another 10% of these plans will be discarding the waivers (Ortaliza, Cox, McGough, Amin, & Rae, para. 3, 2021). <\/p>\n
If this bill is enacted, people will have the opportunity to seek treatment and hopefully, that may lower the rates of COVID-19. Due to the average cost of hospitalization, as a result of COVID-19, being so high\u2014 approximately $17, 094\u2014 people will not get treatment for this disease. According to KFF, their analysis of private insurance claims shows that non-hospital charges for hospital admissions related to COVID-19 treatment are generally about 10% of the total bill and average several thousand dollars or more for patients who require a ventilator (Schwartz & Levitt, 2020). With these costs being so high it is not easy to get the necessary treatment. It was also stated that privately insured patients are not protected from balance billing by providers or hospitals and they have no federal protection against cost-sharing (Schwartz & Levitt, 2020). Resulting in private insured patients still being left with a large bill. If this bill is enacted, people with private insurance will be able to access the waive cost-sharing resulting in more people having access to COVID-19 treatments and testing. This may be able to lower the rates of COVID-19 as well. <\/p>\n
Lastly, another reason which we support this bill is that many people are underinsured or have health insurance but are unable to use it due to the costs. According to White and Whaley, there are large price discrepancies exist between what private health plans pay for hospital services and what Medicare pays (White & Whaley, 2019). Based on three sources\u2014 self-insured employers, state-based all-payer claims databases, and health plans\u2014 it was calculated to be approximately $13 billion worth of hospital spending within 2015-2017 in 25 different states(White & Whaley, 2019). <\/p>\n
We have seen many people go to urgent care or hospital without health insurance and some people even hesitate on whether or not they want to stay and seek service for theirselves because they don\u2019t have any health insurance. Within our group, we have had family and friends who were diagnosed with COVID-19. Those who had private insurers such as Humana Medical Plan and Aetna Health Inc. were denied full coverage for the medical treatments which were needed. Depending on the insurance that they have, it was found to be costly to get a simple COVID test completed; $150 for one test if your insurance didn\u2019t qualify at a certain location. <\/p>\n
Your votes on the Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans\u2019 and Caregivers\u2019 COVID-19 Immunizations Now Expanded Act of 2021VA Vaccine Act of 2021 had displayed your support for those impacted by COVID-19. We encourage you to vote in favor of the new Care For COVID-19 Act. If there is a way that we as student and health care workers can be of assistance please feel free to let us know. Thank you in advance for your support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Honorable Congressman Raul Ruiz : We hope this letter finds you well. Our names We are all Health Service Administration students at Florida International University approaching graduation in the middle of this mayhem known as the COVID-19 pandemic. We speak with a sense of certainty when we assume that most of us, if not all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-78999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-paper-writing","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}