Places like Idaho have started rationing care and placing Covid patients on DNR lists, regardless of their wishes. Right now, the hardest hit places are the northern Mountain West and the Appalachians. I'm not sure if this is solely about vaccine hesitancy or whether cooler weather has anything to do with it. Or maybe it's just the migration of the Delta variant. Obviously, I'm very concerned about the coming winter chill and whether or not the pretty high vaccination rates we have here will protect us. Paul Campos is right that this is the worst public health crisis in our history.
I've been getting notices from my insurer about how much they paid for my hospitalization, and it comes to around $130,000 so far. I've paid almost nothing. However, insurance companies are starting to pass along costs to patients. This will lead to deeply unfair outcomes, as some people who were vaccinated will pay thousands of dollars and some who aren't will pay nothing, simply because of which insurance company or which state they live in.
Back in the spring of 2020, we were told to "flatten the curve" in order to preserve our national health care institutions. Today, in certain parts of the country, the health care providers are broken and the health insurance companies are breaking people.
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