I had the paper out for another purpose today and noted the distribution of payers, included in Table 1. The distribution was 33% commercial insurance, 21% Medicaid, 42% Medicare, and 4% other. In other words, about 70% of NYC COVID patients were not on commercial insurance.
I don't want to draw a direct line, but I looked up performance of United Healthcare stock over six months. It ran around $280 last fall and through January. It hit a nadir of $195 on March 23. It's running about $290 today.
Just as hospitals (outside of NYC and a few places) have empty elective operating suites and often two-thirds empty ERs, and just as many non-essential clinics are closed and doctors face serious financial unknowns (here) - all of that missing revenue on the hospital and clinic side represents revenue not migrating out of payers' balance sheets.
