Rising Insurance Premiums–Another Consequence of the Lockdown Policies
Health insurance premiums are rising throughout the United States, likely due to a rise in primary and preventative care usage. Health insurance premiums across 13 states and Washington, D.C will see a rate increase by an average of 10% next year.
Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation says that the rise in rates is due to the increase in healthcare use among “those who delayed treatment” during the pandemic as well as inflation throughout the economy. Health insurance premiums across 13 states and Washington, D.C will see a rate increase by an average of 10% next year.
The rise in insurance premiums is just one of the latest consequences of restrictive lockdown policies that have been implemented during the pandemic.
What did we know and when?
It is now commonplace for analysts to critique policies that were enacted during the pandemic. But of course, hindsight is 20/20. We could never have known what the impacts of the lockdowns may have on our country. Or did we?
As early as March of 2020, analysts warned about the potential impacts that lockdown policies will almost certainly have on various aspects of the country.
In October of 2020, The Great Barrington Declaration was drafted by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (physician, epidemiologist, and public policy expert at Stanford University) Dr. Martin Kulldorff (professor, biostatistician, and epidemiologist at Harvard University), and Dr. Senetra Gupta (professor and epidemiologist at Oxford University). The Great Barrington Declaration has since received more than 930,000 signatures from around the world including from physicians, epidemiologists, virologists, public health experts, and concerned citizens.
A section from the declaration reads:
Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings, and deteriorating mental health
They advocated “Focused Protection,” which involves protecting the vulnerable in the population. But of course, the drafters and signatories deviated from the mainstream narrative of vaccination and lockdown policies and were thus brushed aside as heretics.
A Johns Hopkins study of the lockdowns published in January of 2022 provided the empirical data for what the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration predicted more than a year earlier.
Even Chief Medical Advisor to the president Dr. Anthony Fauci stated in a July 2020 presentation that we will likely see a rise in deaths from breast and colorectal cancer over the next decade due to reductions in cancer screening and treatment. Dr. Fauci still insisted throughout his tenure (even in the same presentation) to stay at home and maintain social distancing.
Canceled Elective Procedures
In April of 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published a document titled “Non-Emergent, Elective Medical Services, and Treatment Recommendations,” which included recommendations on preventative services during the pandemic. They recommended that “nonessential” services such as routine primary or specialty care and Preventive care visits/screening be postponed due to COVID-19 cases.
Several medical organizations followed suit. The American College of Surgeons published a detailed guideline in March of 2020 titled ACS Guidelines for Triage and Management of Elective Cancer Surgery Cases During the Acute and Recovery Phases of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic. The authors affirmed the importance of developing a plan that would address the risks of contracting COVID-19 infections in medical facilities while also acknowledging the risks of delaying cancer treatment and management.
Unfortunately, the only narrative that had any legitimacy and acceptance at the time was the narrative that enforced authoritarian measures–lockdowns and forced vaccinations.
Results of Lockdown Policies
Today, we see the results of those measures: not only are we experiencing rising insurance premiums throughout the United States (mostly in states where lockdown measures were most intense, such as in California), but also a significant rise in childhood obesity and depression.
If there is one thing we could reflect on is that there was no one solution, no one public health policy, and no one “expert” to follow during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some policies may work for some states while some may work for others.
In a study published in JAMA in 2021, researchers found that although cancer screenings dropped significantly across the United States, the sharpest decline was in the Northeast region of the US. Furthermore, the study found that the recovery in screening was slower in the Western Region of the US than in the Midwest and Southern regions.
Although the authors of the study did not assess the reasons for the decline and recovery of cancer screening rates, the sharpest declines were seen in states with the most restrictive lockdown policies in the United States (such as in New York) and the recovery in screening rates was fastest in states with the least restrictive lockdown policies (as was seen in southern states).
The purpose of this article is not to demean the importance or devastation of COVID, as it has affected nearly everyone in the world to varying degrees. Indeed, COVID-19 affected New York, for example, much differently than Florida, California or Texas. Thus, policies should not be applied equally across all states but should be state and region-specific.
Furthermore, policy advocates often overlook the unintended and long-term effects of certain policies: the rising insurance premiums, rising rates of obesity among children, increase in domestic abuse, and rising rates of depression.
There is no policy that does not have consequences. The effectiveness of any policy should also be weighed against any potential unintended consequences.
