By Michael Snyder
March 24, 2020 "Information
Clearing House" - How
would you feel if you received a bill for more than
$34,000 after being tested and treated for the
coronavirus? This pandemic is showing the entire
world that the U.S. healthcare system is deeply,
deeply broken, and there is no way that we can
continue to go on like this. If coronavirus testing
is quick, inexpensive and widely available all over
the rest of the globe, why can’t that be the case
here too? Democrats and Republicans have been
fighting about fixing our healthcare system all the
way back to the 1990s and they haven’t gotten the
job done. Now we have a system that is a complete
and utter embarrassment, and it is about to be
overwhelmed by the greatest public health crisis
that any of us have ever seen.
Even under normal circumstances, most Americans
are deathly afraid to go to the hospital because of
what it will cost.
I have written about this numerous times before,
but not even I would have imagined that getting
tested and treated for coronavirus would
cost more than $34,000…
A woman in the United States says she was
billed $34,927.43 after being tested and treated
for the coronavirus, Time magazine reports.
When Danni Askini first came down with the
symptoms of the virus — shortness of breath, a
fever, a cough and migraines — she was told by a
doctor to go to the emergency room. There, she
was told she had pneumonia and could go home.
She visited the emergency room two more times as
her symptoms persisted and worsened before she
was finally tested for the coronavirus. Three
days later her results showed she had COVID-19.
How in the world is it possible for a bill to get
that high?
As Danni pointed out, she now owes the hospital
more than she paid for both of her college degrees.
Sadly, she is going to be far from alone.
According to the
Kaiser Family Foundation, coronavirus victims
all over America are going to get hit with extremely
high medical bills…
A new analysis from the Kaiser Family
Foundation estimates that the average cost of
COVID-19 treatment for someone with employer
insurance—and without complications—would be
about $9,763. Someone whose treatment has
complications may see bills about double that:
$20,292. (The researchers came up with those
numbers by examining average costs of hospital
admissions for people with pneumonia.)
What this means is that if even a single member
of your family catches the virus it could instantly
wipe you out financially, and this is especially
true if you do not have health insurance.
