Health Insurance Premiums to skyrocket?
 

Jury awards $12M to woman fired for refusing COVID vax. Hundreds of similar suits pending.

A longtime employee of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan who was fired after refusing for religious reasons to get the COVID-19 vaccine has been awarded more than $12 million by a federal jury.

The jury in Detroit returned the verdict Friday afternoon, finding that Blue Cross discriminated against Lisa Domski, of Wyandotte, who is Catholic, by denying her an exemption to its companywide vaccine mandate, an exemption she had sought based on her "sincerely held religious belief."

Denying her that exemption, known as an accommodation, was a violation of federal and state law, the jury found. They awarded Domski a total of $12.69 million, or $315,000 for back pay, $1.375 million for forgone future wages, $1 million for noneconomic damages and $10 million in punitive damages

Her attorney, Jon Marko of Marko Law in Detroit, said Domski's lawsuit against Blue Cross was the first of its kind to go to trial in Michigan involving an employer denying a religious accommodation to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

In a similar case last month in San Franciso, a federal jury awarded more than $1 million each to six Bay Area Rapid Transit agency workers who also didn't get the vaccine for religious reasons.

Will the verdict stand?

That is probably less than the salary of the CEO of Michigan Blue Cross.

I would hope not

Two things. I wasn’t aware that the Covid vaccine has been proven to be neither safe nor effective? By what reputable source? As far as health insurance premiums, our annual renewal premium is up 7%. Well above reported inflation and certainly too high to justify cutting the Fed Funds rate.

I am assuming that the person is using 100% for both the safetiness and effectiveness (absolutes) and letting the bias slip. I copied a twitter post and not from the article, my mistake, going back to correct it.

The Covid vax has not been proven to be unsafe or ineffective, but it has neither been proven to be safe (there hasn't been enough testing and adverse effects are being suppressed), and it sure as heck doesn't prevent you from getting or transmitting the virus so in my opinion it is not effective.

Regardless, medical insurance premiums are not tied to "inflation". Medical inflation has been way higher than the CPI for years and the premiums have to rise accordingly so the insurers can still remain profitable. Part of this is too much regulation from the Feds. Part of it is the effect the ACA (aka Obamacare) on the health industry and the health insurance industry. Part of this is administrative bloat in corporate insurance. Part of this is tort (if you think this is bad now, wait until the underqualified doctors licensed under the guise of DEI start practicing en masse).

If you're on Medicare, this affects you much less than someone trying to purchase a policy on the exchange or someone getting employer group coverage that they have to pay for out of pocket.

Can one of you Catholics explain to me where in the catechism or the teachings it says not to get vaccines? Did the pope get Covid vaccines? (hint yes) So how does she get away with claimed a religious belief?

I hope this gets overturned. Had she been a Christian Scientist (refuse all medical care) then maybe she would have a case. What if all the people in her office had a sincere held belief that their work environment should be safe from preventable diseases?

You completely fail to understand how medicine and the FDA define safe and effective. To be effective does NOT mean 100% effective, it means more effective than doing nothing. Wearing a bike helmet is effective even though bike riders die wearing helmets. Cancer drugs are effective even though the drug itself can kill you. The goal of the Covid vaccines, pushed by Trump's Operation Warp Speed, was to slow the transmission of the virus and lessen the risk of hospitalization and death. And the vaccine does all of that.

As to how much testing and we don't know... Hundreds of millions of doses have been given just in the US, far more than any other vaccine so there is greatly more data on risk vs benefit than any other vaccine ever licensed, but that is not good enough for some people apparently.

You certainly recall how we were warned that if we got the vaccine we would all be dead in a year or two, or become magnetic, or Bill Gates would control our thoughts or whatever. It never ends.

Just a moment...

has an analysis, but it is behind a paywall. The company did have a religious exemption policy, but Catholicism and the Pope recommending getting the vaccine denying the request, which was countered with a shoddily written corporate policy by the plaintiff. Enough for a jury to want to blame a corporation as a populist view.

So we are getting closer to the situation where jurors will vote for punishments if they can be part of the same class/status as the plaintiff(s), not to be confused with a class action lawsuit. This becomes dangerous as a jury of your peers in financial punishment cases can snowball to bankrupt a company.

So yes, this precedent may just really bankrupt the private insurance / reinsurance industry if the awards continue like this. . be careful what you wish for. .

One more year of BCBS for us and then over to Medicare

How was Covid "preventable"? Certainly not by taking the vaccine. If you go to public places (e.g., work) you run the risk of catching any virus that's going around. So I don't understand your argument here.

No, it doesn't. It may reduce the risk of hospitalization or death, but it most definitely does not slow the transmission.

It may be good enough for some people, but others would prefer complete proper testing as has been done for other vaccines. That's hardly an unreasonable position to take.

Just because there are propagandists spewing crazy doesn't change the fact that the public was deceived and at times outright lied to on so many facets related to the pandemic. There were fine propagandists on both sides. LOL

Outlandish jury verdicts are nothing new. Even when the jurists have nothing to gain. This is a function of inadequate tort reform more than anything else.

Congrats, you will definitely save a fortune when Medicare kicks in. Self funded health insurance premiums for folks between 60-65 are outrageous.

Well Pugchief, would you be so kind as to read, summarize, and link to those other vaccines that had the kind of testing you have deemed "complete proper testing?" Of course not because when you do that reading and if possible understanding you will perhaps discover that the quantity and quality of the testing done on the Covid vaccines both pre and post marketing was higher than for any other vaccine ever introduced.