SALT LAKE CITY – People who say they have certain diseases can jump in front of the line for a COVID-19 vaccine. When that person shows up to be shot, no one will ask for evidence. It’s all about the honor system, Utah state and county officials said.
But even if there is no legal consequence, lying people can indeed be punished. KSL investigators found that there could be a financial penalty for lying that he was ill to receive a vaccine.
If you tell a county health department that you have a comorbidity, a medical record is created. And health records are a favorite tool for insurance companies when trying to determine if you are worthy of life insurance.
“If it’s in your medical records, that life insurance company will consider it real,” said Brian King, a lawyer who specializes in fighting life insurance companies to get them to pay damages.
King said having a serious medical condition listed in medical records can mean anything from paying more for life insurance to not qualifying for life insurance at all. It could even give a life insurance company an excuse not to pay your family after you die.
“People don’t think about it,” King said. “They don’t think about their future. They look at the immediate need or desire that they have to cross the line and get vaccinated sooner rather than later. They can come back and bite you very hard.”
(People) do not think about their future. He looks at the immediate need or desire to cross the line and get vaccinated sooner rather than later. It can turn and bite you very hard.
– Brian King, lawyer
Rep. Utah’s Norm Thurston, R-Provo, worked on a lot of insurance laws during his time on the hill. He saw how what is written in a person’s medical records can be extremely expensive for them.
“Insurance companies are currently seeking medical records,” Thurston said.
Thurston said people typically rely on their life insurance claims to keep premiums low – for example, pretending not to smoke when they do. This would be the opposite of this – the lie about being sicker.
Thurston said that this territory is a little unexplored and that time will tell how much life insurance companies rely on medical records created in the vaccination process when determining a client’s risk. But he agreed with King that it was conceivable that it might cost a person their insurance.
“If someone wrote on the form, ‘I have diabetes’ or ‘I have uncontrolled blood pressure,’ that form would create a record, and the life insurance company could take that,” Thurston said.
Medical records are not, of course, public records, and health departments will not share them with life insurance companies without a patient’s permission. But a life insurance company may refuse to insure that patient if it refuses to give permission to see medical records.
“We expect people to be honest,” Salt Lake County Health Department spokesman Nick Rupp told KSL TV, even though he knows the expectations are a bit pleasant in the sky.
The county encountered liars just before the criteria were expanded to allow people with certain comorbidities to receive the vaccine in Utah.
“We have had a few people who have already lied about the date of birth through the system to be eligible earlier than they should,” he said.