Nearly all newly hospitalized COVID-19 patients have decided against being vaccinated, while the bills for their care reach astronomical heights.

So in an opinion piece in the New York Times, Elisabeth Rosenthal and Glenn Kramon pose a question: "Why should patients be kept financially unharmed from what is now a preventable hospitalization, thanks to a vaccine that the government paid for and made available for free?".

"If patients thought about the price they might need to pay for their own care," the authors say, "maybe they would reconsider remaining unprotected." The NFL, for example, will dock players if there's a COVID-19 outbreak on their team among unvaccinated players that requires cancellation of a game