Big pandemic spending at Kansas hospitals could make your insurance even more expensive

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."“How long before this filters out to everybody is really the big question,” VinZant said. “That day might be coming for a lot of us.”

The state’s high rate of uninsured people — which, unlike most states’, did not improve during the pandemic despite special programs to boost coverage rates — could mean even bigger premium increases for people who are insured.

“We still have a large pool of uninsured patients in the state because we didn’t expand Medicaid,” said Donna Ginther, an economics professor at the University of Kansas. “When hospitals have a large number of uninsured patients, those costs get passed on to people with private insurance.”

Hospital expenses also offer an early window into the state of the health care industry as a whole. VinZant said higher costs there likely indicate higher costs across the board — which could compound insurance price hikes.

“If hospital expenses are going up this much, how much are other medical care costs also going up because of the pandemic?” said VinZant. “And then how much is that ultimately going to lead to an increase in your health insurance premiums?”

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