Claire Lindell had to wait months for treatment when doctors in April 2020 were forced to suddenly cancel the little girl’s spine surgery.
The delay was particularly stressful because the operation addressed several issues, including the 4-year-old’s high risk of respiratory infection — such as from the emerging COVID-19 virus.
“That was a tough period,” recalled her father, A.J. Lindell of Prior Lake.
Five years later, Claire’s health care journey has gone well. And the Lindells, who always kept paying health insurance premiums even when care was unavailable, help illustrate an intriguing financial backstory with the pandemic.
Hospitals and clinics in Minnesota and across the country were frantically preparing five years ago this spring to conserve resources for an expected surge of COVID-19 patients that some feared could overwhelm the health care system.
Yet the first year of the pandemic was historic not only for COVID, but for a surprising side effect — the health system known for inexorable growth actually provided less care in most categories. Elective procedures were put on hold due to emergency orders, and even after they lifted, many patients still opted to stay away.
Health insurers were huge financial beneficiaries of this surprise.
Their profits increased 52% as they continued collecting insurance premiums while fewer patients went to the doctor. Whereas health plans across the country collectively reported an average of $27 billion in operating profit per year between 2017 and 2019, operating earnings across the industry in 2020 surged to $41.4 billion, according to a Minnesota Star Tribune analysis of data provided by Mark Farrah Associates, a Pennsylvania-based analytics firm that tracks data across all U.S. states and territories.