Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP
President Donald Trump speaks in an address to the nation from the Oval Office at the White House about the coronavirus Wednesday, March, 11, 2020, in Washington.
- In his Wednesday night speech to the nation, President Donald Trump made a major misstatement about how health insurers are paying for services related to the testing and treatment of the novel coronavirus COVID-19.
- Trump said that major health insurers would not only cover the costs of coronavirus treatment in insurance plans, but also waive co-payments for all coronavirus treatments.
- A representative for an insurance-industry group told Politico that major health insurers had largely agreed to waive co-pays only for coronavirus testing, not the far more costly coronavirus treatments.
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In his nationally-televised address Wednesday night, President Donald Trump made a major misstatement about how health insurers are paying for services related to the testing and treatment of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 that revealed the dysfunction of his adminstration's response to the crisis.
The speech ended up raising more questions than it answered and sowed more confusion and fear about the administration's coronavirus response as officials -- including Trump -- had to clarify or walk back three of the major policy announcements Trump made in his speech.
After Trump sparked panic by announcing a 30-day ban on travel from Europe to the US to limit the virus' spread, his own Department of Homeland Security clarified that the ban would exempt US citizens and permanent citizens and exclude major regions, including the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Trump made another major announcement in his speech by telling Americans - many of them anxious about affording coronavirus testing or treatment - that many major health insurers would not only cover the costs of coronavirus treatment in insurance plans, but also waive co-payments for all coronavirus treatments.
In his speech, Trump said: "Earlier this week, I met with the leaders of health insurance industry who have agreed to waive all co-payments for coronavirus treatments, extend insurance coverage to these treatments, and to prevent surprise medical billing."
Not long after his address, however, a representative for the insurance-industry group America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) told Politico that major health insurers had largely agreed to waive co-pays only for coronavirus testing, not the far more costly coronavirus treatments.
In an effort to walk back and try to mitigate the confusion from Trump's remarks, a White House official told CNN's Jim Acosta that Trump meant to re-iterate Vice President Mike Pence's previous comments say that insurers would waive co-pays on testing.
It's currently unclear whether Trump's inaccurate claims regarding what services insurers would be waiving costs for was written into his speech, if misread his teleprompter, or if he deliberately misrepresented the facts.
According to a March 6 release from AHIP, large health insurers including Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, Kaiser Permanente, Oscar, and Regence are taking a range of measures to help ease the financial burden of the novel coronavirus outbreak on patients.
Those measures range from guaranteeing coverage for coronavirus-related testing and treatment, offering free telemedicine, and waiving the other out-of-pocket costs associated with testing, including co-payments, deductibles, and co-insurance payments.
Only one insurer on AHIP's list, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, says they will waive co-pays specifically for coronavirus treatment at "doctor's offices, emergency rooms and urgent care centers."
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has also given health insurers that offer Medicare Advantage, private health plans that contract with Medicaid to serve elderly Americans, permission to waive cost-sharing, including co-pays and deductibles, for novel coronavirus treatment. They are not, however, requiring insurers to waive those costs.
The outbreak of the new coronavirus, first identified in China, has now spread to 118 countries and regions, infecting an estimated 127,000 people and causing more than 4,700 deaths worldwide. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization officially declared the coronavirus a pandemic.
There are now more than 1,300 confirmed cases and 38 deaths from the coronavirus in the US spread throughout Washington, DC, and 45 states. The United States has been far behind the curve in terms of both establishing widespread testing for the disease, providing resources, and enacting large-scale mitigation efforts.
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