Opinion | We’re All Paying the Steepest Price for Those Refusing to Get Vaccinated

By: | September 21, 2021

Dan Reynolds is editor-in-chief of Risk & Insurance. He can be reached at [email protected].

No one has cornered the market on convoluted thinking, but those adults in this country who insist their personal freedoms trump the general good of widespread COVID vaccination might currently be in first place.

The idea has been floated that insurance companies, health insurers in this case, should charge higher premiums to people who refuse to get vaccinated.

This makes sense, doesn’t it? In commercial insurance, if an insured is willfully negligent, coverage not only becomes very expensive, it can be denied altogether.

I don’t see why the same logic shouldn’t apply to those who refuse to get vaccinated. They are denying science and best practices, plain and simple.

It’s not only the health insurers that will pay here. Commercial insurance will pay the price; employers will pay the price; we are all paying the exorbitant price to cover those who won’t act responsibly.

Children will die, have died, because adults won’t do what they should.

While other countries beg for the vaccine, vials of it rot on our shelves, because some of us won’t take them.

The beauty of insurance and risk management are that they can be enforcers of good behavior and build safety and security where otherwise they might not exist.

The refusal of so many millions to get vaccinated seems ripe for the application of well-established risk management practices. &

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