{"id":471320,"date":"2026-02-16T04:22:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T04:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/471320\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T04:22:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T04:22:22","slug":"how-much-does-medical-care-cost-at-the-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/471320\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much Does Medical Care Cost at the Olympics?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMILAN\u2014Lindsey Vonn<\/a>\u2019s brutal crash in Sunday\u2019s women\u2019s downhill resulted in a complex tibia fracture to her left leg, a serious injury that saw her airlifted from the mountain in Cortina, Italy, to a nearby hospital where she underwent three surgeries this week.<\/p>\n

\n\tA severe medical emergency of that nature might cost the average person untold thousands of dollars out of pocket in the U.S., depending on their level of health insurance coverage. At the Olympics, any athlete who requires medical care during the Games is given treatment gratis, according to Jonathan Finnoff, chief medical officer for Team USA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tMedical services at the Olympic Games are covered by the local organizing committee; in this case, it\u2019s part of the \u20ac1.7 billion ($2 billion) budget for Milan Cortina 2026. The medical services include six so-called polyclinics in each of the Olympic villages of the expansive Northern Italian Olympics, which offer everything from eye checks and dentistry to OB-GYN services. The Olympic hosts also provide several primary and secondary hospitals, should an athlete need to visit a trauma center for critical injuries, Finnoff said.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen an Olympic athlete suffers an injury requiring immediate care, a team of medical professionals from both the host city and the athlete\u2019s national Olympic team step in to help.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSay you have a big injury and an athlete has to have surgery here,\u201d Finnoff told Sportico. \u201cThey would receive surgery through the organizing committee, or if they wanted something to be stabilized for more definitive treatments back home, then that that could be stabilized here, and then [Team USA\u2019s] travel insurance policy would kick in, and that would cover an air ambulance to get them home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to the services offered athletes during the Games, Team USA\u2019s travel insurance carrier covers ongoing care to athletes who sustain injuries at the Olympics that require follow-up.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat we\u2019re really trying to do is not only provide ongoing and long-term care for our athletes so that they have the optimal recovery,\u201d Finnoff said, \u201cwe\u2019re also trying to eliminate any type of financial barrier to seeking that type of care.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAny athlete who qualifies for the U.S. Olympic team also becomes eligible for elite athlete health insurance, Finnoff said, meaning sports stars have a coverage plan available to them if they don\u2019t already have their own. Furthermore, Team USA has a network of nine U.S.-based medical partners through which Olympians can receive follow-up care. In that commercial relationship, Team USA provides marketing in return for in-kind medical services, Finnoff said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUltimately what that means is that the athlete has no out-of-pocket expense,\u201d if they visit those providers, which include Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles, Texas Children\u2019s Hospital, Adirondack Health in upstate New York, and others.<\/p>\n

\n\tFinnoff has been chief medical officer for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee since 2020, during which time he has helped implement COVID-19 control measures and dispatched health professionals to assist injured or sick Olympians.<\/p>\n

\n\tCoordinating medical care at the Olympics is a gargantuan task that begins well before the Games begin. Host committees liaise with the IOC, international sports federations and professional sports leagues like the NHL to determine the specific health needs of each sport before the host committee staffs up. At the Milan-Cortina Games, spread across six villages in three distinct clusters in northern Italy, Finnoff said the hosts have so far done well synchronizing medical services.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe medical community in Italy is outstanding, we\u2019ve been very happy with the care that the athletes that have had,\u201d Finnoff said. \u201cThey\u2019ve been very welcoming to our medical staff, so when somebody is having surgery, they\u2019ve allowed one of our physicians to be in the surgery\u2014not doing it, but being there as an observer\u2014and that\u2019s a huge deal. It gives a lot of people peace of mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the same time, the dispersed clusters of the Milan-Cortina Games present logistical challenges. The host cities are spread across Northern Italy without streamlined travel connection, meaning Finnoff has had to bring extra staff and supplies to each site. \u00a0For example, if a flu outbreak started in the Livigno cluster, \u201cand I\u2019m using Tamiflu to treat that,\u201d he said, \u201cif I run out, it\u2019s not as easy to get more\u201d from Milan or Cortina.<\/p>\n

\n\tEach host nation presents its own healthcare challenges. The healthcare system in the U.S. is unique among major developed nations for being deeply fragmented and largely privatized. With the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics on the horizon, Finnoff said the southern California host committee \u201chas their work cut out for them\u201d to establish the comprehensive Olympic health services for athletes coming ashore for the Games.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s going to be challenging,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I think that the LA organizing committee is a very talented group of individuals who are going to absolutely overcome all the challenges that are put in front of them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN\u2014Lindsey Vonn\u2019s brutal crash in Sunday\u2019s women\u2019s downhill resulted in a complex tibia fracture to her left leg,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[151388,97,8337,252,253,87371,42270],"class_list":{"0":"post-471320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-2026-olympics","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-and-wellness","11":"tag-health-care","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-lindsey-vonn","14":"tag-team-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}