There isn't a lot of primary source and red-pill friendly documents on the money hospitals make from COVID that is subsidized by the Federal government through the CARES Act. This is intended to be an exposure to that for the purpose of showing to skeptics.

This article published on the Kaiser website states:

The three COVID-19 stimulus bills that Congress has passed provide additional funding for hospitals and for free coronavirus testing for the uninsured through Medicaid. While Congress did not allocate any money specifically for COVID-19 treatment or coverage for the uninsured, President Trump has stated his intention to reimburse hospitals for treating the uninsured by tapping a new $100 billion in funding for hospitals and other health care entities...

...administration officials have said that hospitals would get reimbursed at Medicare rates, which are substantially lower than prices paid by private insurers. The administration has not provided any cost estimates for this new policy, other than to say that the funding will come from the $100 billion in the CARES Act.

They estimate how much an uninsured person diagnosed with COVID will cost the taxpayer. The official Medicaid government site estimates the number of people on Medicaid (which is what covers these “uninsured”) is 71.4M in 2019. This Kaiser article also estimates how much the hospital will get for anyone on Medicare, which is exclusively for people over 65. This Medicare receiving population is a large percentage of the people admitted to the hospital for COVID, and a large percentage of the people put on ventilators. This site (stated to be on contract with cms.gov) estimates the number of people on Medicare is 64.4M in 2019.

The difference between Medicare and Medicaid is that Medicare is supposedly paid for by a Trust that people put in to, however, Medicare is highly subsidized by the Federal and State governments. In response to the “COVID crisis” these subsidies were increased by the CARES act. Medicaid on the other hand is paid effectively 100% by government subsidies.

In either case the CARES act puts all of those people in one COVID crisis bucket, and pays for all the COVID stuff. The total number of Americans (or illegal aliens in America) that are paid for by these government subsidies is around 136M + some number of illegal aliens.

This Kaiser article also says something else very interesting. The hospitals get more from everyone else; i.e. those with their own health insurance. It states:

Medicare payments are about half of what private insurers pay on average for the same diagnoses.

You might say, well that’s Health Insurance; the Health Insurance Companies bear that burden. But the money doesn’t come “from” the health insurers, it comes out of the paychecks of people who work. It is just another payroll tax, generally compulsory. The point being, the hospitals receive even more for everyone else than what is stated in this Kaiser article.

They go through some justifications for their final estimate before stating it:

To project how much hospitals would get paid by the federal government for treating uninsured patients, we look at payments for admissions for similar conditions. For less severe hospitalizations, we use the average Medicare payment for respiratory infections and inflammations with major comorbidities or complications in 2017, which was $13,297. For more severe hospitalizations, we use the average Medicare payment for a respiratory system diagnosis with ventilator support for greater than 96 hours, which was $40,218. Each of these average payments was then increased by 20% to account for the add-on to Medicare inpatient reimbursement for patients with COVID-19 that was included in the CARES Act.

That’s $13,297 (in 2017 dollars) on average for anyone admitted to a hospital for such a disease, and $40,218 (in 2017 dollars) on average for anyone put on a respirator. You then take that amount and multiply it by 20% (per the CARES Act), and then adjust for inflation (a whopping 13.7%) for totals of $18.1k and $54.9k. This doesn’t take into account the bonuses for Remdesivir, or the other incentives.

These bonuses can be found in this document from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The details begin on page 53.

It should be noted that this bonus 20% is if someone is diagnosed with COVID. It should also be noted a person can be diagnosed with COVID even if they haven't tested for it, or even if they test for it and the test is negative, if the doctor determines that they likely have COVID.

From the CDC COVID diagnosis guidance (page 2, left side bottom):

In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID–19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely (e.g., the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID–19 on a death certificate as “probable” or “presumed.” In these instances, certifiers should use their best clinical judgement in determining if a COVID–19 infection was likely

This article from the American College of Cardiology says this about false negatives for the RT-PCR test in May 2020 (one of the peaks of the COVID crisis):

Over the 4 days of infection before the typical time of symptom onset (day 5), the probability of a false-negative result in an infected person decreased from 100% (95% confidence interval [CI], 100%-100%) on day 1 to 67% (CI, 27%-94%) on day 4. On the day of symptom onset, the median false-negative rate was 38% (CI, 18%-65%). This decreased to 20% (CI, 12%-30%) on day 8 (3 days after symptom onset) then began to increase again, from 21% (CI, 13%-31%) on day 9 to 66% (CI, 54%-77%) on day 21. The false-negative rate was minimized 8 days after exposure—that is, 3 days after the onset of symptoms on average.

So at best (only on day 8 after infection) the false negative rate is 20%, coming down from 38% on day 4, and rising up to 66% on day 9 according to this article. I don't know if that's accurate. I did not do an analysis on their methods. But it is what they say, and if it is what they say, it is likely what doctors believe.

If doctors believe that there are a ton of false negatives, and there is a real scare in the community that an absolutely devastating virus is about to consume the world, might they err on the side of caution?

This doesn't even touch the financial incentives. This is just accidental, fear based misdiagnoses. Misdiagnoses happen all the time for other things. This article suggests a 9.7% average misdiagnoses across the board in Medicine. Now we have new tests, that are shown to err all the time (I haven't even touched false positives here). We have fears that missing a COVID diagnosis could result in other deaths because we are told that constantly by the media. We have massive financial incentives to diagnose COVID. I’m not saying that it is happening, but it is ridiculous to think its impossible given the absolute Billions involved. Corporations have done a lot worse than encourage a misdiagnosis for money. It would be completely unreasonable to assume that misdiagnoses aren't happening here.

Could that be why the flu has been cured? Might they not be misdiagnosing the flu for COVID just in case? How about pneumonia? That also looks like COVID no matter the cause. How about remdesivir treatments which can cause kidney disorders. Kidney disorders of this type can cause the lungs to fill with fluid because your body is unable to take the fluid out (the job of the kidneys). Both of these symptoms from remdesivir are also reported symptoms of COVID. Are there possible complications from this symptomatic crossover, including perhaps ventilation, which has a 50-90% mortality rate depending on your age group?

All that aside, the Kaiser article then puts the greed icing on the corruption cake:

Based on the above, we estimate total payments to hospitals for treating uninsured patients under the Trump administration policy would range from $13.9 billion to $41.8 billion. At the top end of the range, payments on behalf of the uninsured would consume more than 40% of the $100 billion fund Congress created to help hospitals and others respond to the COVID-19 epidemic. Given the uncertainty of our estimates of the total funding that will be needed to reimburse hospitals, and the fact that infections may come in several waves over the next year,2 it is unclear whether the new fund will be able to cover the costs of the uninsured in addition to other needs...

“Thanks for the extra 100 Billion dollars, but it’s probably not going to be enough.”

To which I say, “Good thing you get double that from the compulsory tax provided by the money laundering fund called Health Insurance, which you also own.”