Hey there, a couple weeks ago we explored a question we got from Becky in Minnesota, which was,

if I got COVID, what good would my insurance do me? And if you caught that episode, you might remember one takeaway was

actually kind of cheerful for this show anyway.

As in COVID relief laws Congress passed in March

actually give consumers some protections,

limits on what providers can charge,

requirements for insurance companies to cover COVID

testing and COVID related testing 100%. You might also remember that the

federal guidelines telling hospitals and insurance companies how to interpret those new laws

were still coming out and experts were still digesting those guidelines.

Like the night before the podcast came out we had to do an emergency interview

with Sabrina Corlett, who runs Georgetown

Universities Center on Health Insurance Reforms, because all that stuff had just changed.

How unusual is it for you to have these kind of giant policy changes kind of coming like, oh, and then this happened on Saturday, and then there's this new guidance as of Monday, and hey, it's Tuesday. How unusual is that for you?

Well then out on top of that 50 states that are putting out new guidance every single day.

So it's a little overwhelming.

So a few hours after the podcast came out, I got a note from Sabrina.

She was forwarding me some new analysis, like new that morning from a colleague of hers,

and it said,

hey, you know that requirement

that insurance companies fully cover

COVID-related testing?

...