Vacaville couple hit with $1.3 million COVID-19 medical bill
Insurance will cover most of the bill. But the Masons are still on the hook for $42,100 — money they'll never have.
(File photo, Graphic by Solano NewsNet)
A Vacaville couple is trying to figure out how they will pay off thousands of dollars in medical expenses related to a severe infection of COVID-19 early last year.
Patricia Mason contracted the contagious virus in March, right around the start of the health pandemic. First, she lost her appetite. Then came the fever. A few virtual doctor’s visits and two wrong diagnosis later, Mason walked into NorthBay’s Vaca Valley Hospital by herself. She was admitted, then rushed to NorthBay’s main campus in Fairfield.
A doctor called her husband with the bad news: It was COVID-19. A doctor told her husband that Mason may not have much longer to live, but they would do all they could to keep her alive.
Miraculously, Mason pulled through. But her month-long stay in the hospital came with a major bill at the end of her treatment in the amount of $1,339,181.94.
Mason and her husband work five jobs. One of them, a union gig for a local pharmaceutical company, provides healthcare insurance through Blue Shield. The couple told the Los Angeles Times on Monday that Blue Shield will cover all but $42,184.20 of the bill.
“I don’t have $42,000 to spare,” Mason told the newspaper in an interview. “We’re at the point where we’re trying to make it through the next 15 years, so hopefully we can one day retire.”
Mason said she’s happy — and lucky — to be alive. And she’s counting her blessings there. But the bill weighs heavy on her and her husband. They know they don’t have the money to cover it. And they probably never will.
Under most healthcare plans, out-of-pocket deductibles are capped at a certain limit. But the Masons’ Blue Shield plan is a self-funded account through the union, which is exempt from those out-of-pocket caps. Their insurance plan doesn’t have the same protections as typical consumer and group care plans.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, some insurers agreed to waive out-of-pocket costs for their policyholders. But the federal government didn’t require insurers to agree to these waivers. And while Congress did pass legislation that covers COVID-19 related bills for uninsured Americans, so far, they’ve not provided any financial assistance to under-insured Americans like the Masons. (Congressional lawmakers had the chance to correct this oversight last December when they were debating a second COVID-19 relief package. They didn’t. Instead, lawmakers allocated additional money for their own healthcare needs.)
Congress has another chance to correct the issue as lawmakers debate additional COVID-19 relief and stimulus measures. Medical bills like the ones encountered by the Masons don’t appear to be on the table this time, either, though politicians continue to dicker over the details.
In the meantime, the Masons will continue to stare at a “past due” amount that they know they’ll never be able to pay. In addition to the bill, Mason continues to struggle with the after-effects of a COVID-19 infection, including memory fog and random pains.
“Every time I turn around, [I think,] is this something that’s related to COVID and is it something that’s going to last forever?” she told the Times.
Much like the question of who will pay her massive bill, the answer appears to be, no one knows for sure.
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