The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent vaccine advisers (ACIP) voted on Tuesday to recommend updated COVID-19 vaccines for all Americans 6 months of age and older.
This means the vaccine will be covered by almost all private insurers, in addition through public programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the Vaccines for Children program. Three experts joined the National Press Foundation Sept. 12, 2023, to discuss vaccine insurance coverage, accessibility to those uninsured and how journalists can better report on the future of COVID.
Watch the video here:
Here’s what each speaker had to say:
Look at the Bridge Access Program, says Mario Ramirez, a senior consultant for the law firm Akin Gump and a practicing emergency physician in Northern Virginia. The CDC program provides free COVID-19 vaccines to uninsured and under-insured adults until Dec. 31, 2024.
“The Bridge Access Program was essentially designed to provide access to vaccines for people who didn’t have eligibility under other mechanisms. Whether they didn’t have Medicare coverage, Medicaid, private insurance, and they fell below other socioeconomic lines that prevented access to vaccines. And I think the program is just standing up. And so, I think there are some concerns about how well it’s going to work,” said Ramirez, managing director at Opportunity Labs and a former acting director of the Office of Pandemic and Emerging Threats at the Department of Health & Human Services. “Earlier this month, there were concerns about whether access to those vaccines through that program are going to be rolled out at the same time as access for everyone else. I think that those hurdles have been ironed out, but that’s a story to follow in the weeks ahead. And whether or not people in those age groups or in those groups have been able to access vaccines through community health centers and, in particular, through pharmacies where a lot of the friction is in the weeks ahead.”
ACIP-recommended vaccines are required to be free by private insurance and Medicare, says Patricia D’Antonio, the vice president of policy and professional affairs for the Gerontological Society of America and co-chair of the Adult Vaccine Access Coalition. The COVID vaccine is also free for those on Medicaid, so nine out of 10 Americans will be able to get the COVID vaccine at no cost this year, she said. The question is, will they?
“I think it’s really important to remember that vaccines save lives,” D’Antonio said. “Next to us being able to have clean water systems in the United States, vaccines are the next level of impact in public health.”
She also emphasized that this is an updated vaccine, not a booster. And to think of it as an annual vaccine, like the flu vaccine, which can be co-administered.
“This time it’s different,” says Alexander Tin, a digital reporter for CBS News who has been covering the pandemic for three years.
“The previous COVID vaccine rollouts up until this point have all been through that government-bought and paid-for supply chain. … [now] we’re in essentially what people like to say is the regular, traditional commercial market. And in some ways that’s familiar, but also in some ways, that’s going to be very different for a lot of people.”
The panel also noted that reporting of COVID cases is no longer mandated, meaning that information on outbreaks may be delayed. This and other practical information, such as where people should go for their vaccines, is crucial for local journalists to relay to their audiences.
This program was sponsored by the COVID-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project. NPF is solely responsible for the content.
