This isn’t an attempt to estimate a typical bill for an asymptomatic individual. It’s an attempt to set an expected value for the costs that will eventually be incurred across the population of asymptomatic patients. They are using a mean to describe how costs will scale with the size of that population (asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 positive) and NOT as a way to describe the typical costs of individuals in that population. The cost distribution is almost certainly a power law. I’d guess the median is zero and the mean is many thousand dollars.
As others have said, there are unknown but already detected cases of asymptomatic impacts. One football team doc said he thought 1/8 had some impact on heart function long term. Those who see this as no big deal for some reason are stuck on arguing the exact percentage of impact.
Several studies have shown that asymptomatic infections may have long-term impact. The valuation may be taking that into account -- you might not get that bill today, but maybe you (or your insurance) will pay that over the course of your lifetime
> Several studies have shown that asymptomatic infections may have long-term impact.
To the tune of tens of thousands of dollars on average? That's not plausible.
Sure it is. If 5% of asymptomatic cases require care that costs $200k, you come to $10k a person. This is entirely plausible in the US, particularly if you are amortizing the cost over the lifetime of the patient.
Can you cite any paper that suggests serious complications for asymptomatic patients is anywhere even remotely close to 5%? All I've seen is a handful of rare anecdotes, nothing to suggest it's a remotely likely outcome.
You're looking at actuarial estimates. Overestimating unknown-unknowns is more pragmatic than underestimating them. No, the article doesn't show how that particular sausage is made; we're all out here guessing.