Starting on May 11, President Biden is ENDING the emergency COVID-19 regulations that have been in place since the start of the pandemic in January 2020. These regulations created (almost) a Medicare for All-type public funding system for vaccines, testing, and COVID-related care. While the pandemic itself is still raging, the end of the official Public Health Emergency (PHE) means that access to COVID prevention and care will become like any other form of care in the U.S.: whatever you can get through the private market. That means prices going up, highly inequitable access, and millions of us falling through the cracks. In addition, the public health emergency added crucially important protections for Medicaid enrollees, millions of whom will start getting kicked off their insurance in April. Brace yourself for a major healthcare catastrophe a couple of months from now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4yyY_YbOCw

Show Notes

The COVID-19 pandemic is still happening

According to CDC:

Still an Average of 40,404 new cases per week (and these numbers are surely an undercount considering how few cases are actually reported to a public health agency.)

Still an average of 3,665 hospital admissions per week

Still an average of 453 deaths per day

Still a lot worse than flu! Among the 2,398 Pneumonia, Influenza, and Covid deaths reported for this week, 998 had COVID-19 listed as an underlying or contributing cause of death on the death certificate, and 50 listed influenza.

According to William Hanage, epidemiology professor from Harvard: “It’s beyond question that society has moved into a stage where the pandemic is for most of us if not over then certainly quiet. And that’s a great thing. Long may it remain so. Is it the case that there is no preventable suffering? No. There is still preventable suffering and death.”

Why end the Public Health Emergency when the virus is still raging?

We all wish COVID-19 would go away. President Joe Biden’s announcement Monday January 30th that his administration would end the PHE along with a separate COVID-19 national emergency in May, winding down services and supports.

The Public Health Emergency has been really inconvenient for Republicans, so they voted for a bill in the House to end the PHE immediately.

With either approach, the gradual wind-down or the abrupt end, there is no way to legislate ending the pandemic. Germs don't care about politics. What's really ending is the public health safety net for preventing and treating COVID.

What were the emergency regulations, and what are the real-life consequences of ending them a few months from now?

Let’s start with the single most important thing that’s going to happen: an estimated 15 million people are going to get kicked off of Medicaid starting in April. That’s about 4.5% of the entire population of the United States. When COVID struck, the federal government essentially banned states from kicking people off of Medicaid. People get churned off of Medicaid shockingly frequently - maybe because you started earning just a little too much money, or you moved and your re-determination paperwork went to your old address, or a million other reasons. This mostly stopped during the pandemic, and Medicaid’s enrollment rose - the federal government also provided increased funding to states to pay for the increased enrollment.

The next regulation that’s ending has to do with our old friend, Medicare Advantage plans. We’ve talked a lot about how privatized, for-profit Medicare Advantage plans have extremely limited networks, making it hard to get the care you need without having to travel ridiculous distances. During the COVID emergency Advantage plans were required to cover COVID-related treatments at ALL providers as in-network care. That’s going to end starting in May, and if you see the wrong provider for COVID care, you could get slammed with a huge bill.

What about COVID tests?