The U.S. will stop buying Covid shots at a reduced price for the entire country and shift vaccine distribution to the private market as soon as early fall, shifting the cost to U.S. insurers and uninsured Americans who stand to lose access to the free vaccines.
Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House Covid response coordinator, said in an an interview with UCSF Department of Medicine on Thursday that the shift to a private market will happen over the summer or early fall, though no exact date has been set.
A senior official with the Health and Human Services Department told CNBC the fall would be a natural time to transition to a private market, particularly if the Food and Drug Administration selects a new Covid strain for the vaccines and asks the manufacturers to produce updated shots ahead of the respiratory virus season.
For the past two years, the U.S. has bought the vaccines directly from Pfizer and Moderna at an average price of about $21 per dose, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The federal government has required pharmacies, doctor’s offices and hospitals to provide these shots for free to everyone regardless of their insurance status.
If you have health insurance When the federal Covid vaccination program ends, the shots will remain free for people who have health insurance due to requirements under the Affordable Care Act.
But uninsured adults may have to pay for their immunizations when Pfizer and Moderna start selling the shots on the private market and the current federal stockpile runs out. There is a federal program to provide free vaccines to children whose families or caretakers can’t afford the shots.
Jha said on Tuesday the planned switch is not tied to the end of the Covid public health emergency in May.
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