The U.S. government is working with commercial health insurers to make future COVID-19 vaccines free of charge with no copay, an HHS official told The Wall Street Journal.
Paul Mango, deputy chief of staff for policy at HHS, said government health insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid will cover the cost of administering COVID-19 vaccines, and a federal fund created by the CARES Act will provide the shots free for uninsured people.
A collaboration between the federal government and the healthcare industry will handle the distribution of the vaccines, and the government will announce distributor contracts soon, Mr. Mango told the Journal.
The U.S. Defense Department may handle sending vaccine doses to military personnel overseas.
National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, said the government will prioritize giving the vaccine to healthcare workers, the elderly, nursing home residents and those at high risk for COVID-9, the Journal reported. The government has already spent more than $9 billion to secure hundreds of millions of doses of experimental COVID-19 vaccines.
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