When Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, a former drug company executive and pharmaceutical lobbyist, was asked about the potential cost of the Covid 19 vaccine during a congressional hearing on Wednesday he stated that, although he would want to make it affordable, he won’t promise that it will be. “We can’t control that price because we need the private sector to invest,”
During an outbreak of an infectious disease, that attitude doesn’t just put the poor at risk by making it harder for them to access a protective drug — it puts everyone at risk.
Under the ACA, that republicans led by trump are trying to destroy, health insurers must cover federally-recommended vaccines at no cost for most people, according to John Cogan, a professor of health insurance law and financial regulation at the University of Connecticut.
"Everyone under Obamacare would be covered under this vaccination without cost-sharing," Cogan told Business Insider. That would extend to the health insurance people get through their employers, as well as to most health insurance programs like Medicaid for children and people with low incomes, he said
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President Obama's signature law — passed in 2010 —bans insurers from applying co-pays, deductibles, and co-insurance to vaccinations recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ensuring they're basically free for patients covered under those plans.
These are the plans Republicans want to eliminate so insurers can resume selling you junk health policies as they did pre-ACA.
