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U.S. plans to stop buying Covid shots in the fall. What that means


A pharmacist delivers a COVID-19 booster dose at a Chicago CVS store in October.

Antonio Perez | Tribune News Service | Getty Images

The U.S. will stop buying Covid shots at 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

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When the federal government no longer buys vaccines at a discount for the entire nation, individual health-care providers will purchase the shots from the vaccine makers at a higher price.

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel told CNBC last month that the company is preparing to sell the vaccines on the private market as early as this fall. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told investors during the company’s earnings call this week that he is preparing for the vaccines to go commercial in the second half of the year.

Pfizer and Moderna have said they are considering hiking the price of the vaccines to somewhere around $110 to $130 per dose once the U.S. government pulls out of the vaccine program.

If you’re uninsured

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“Everyone in the U.S. regardless of their citizenship status or their insurance status is able to get a free vaccine as long as this federal stockpile lasts,” Cox said.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., slammed the vaccine price hike in a letter to Moderna’s CEO last month. Sanders, who will chair the Senate health committee, said the price hike would cost taxpayers billions via its impact on Medicaid and Medicare’s budgets.

“Perhaps most significantly, the quadrupling of prices will make the vaccine unavailable for millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans who will not be able to afford it,” Sanders said. “How many of these Americans will die from Covid-19 as a result of limited access to these lifesaving vaccines?”

Jha said this week that the Biden administration is committed to helping the uninsured access Covid shots and treatments.

“We are creating a whole separate set of efforts for the uninsured because the uninsured, of course, will not be able to get vaccines for free and treatments for free under the regular insurance system by definition,” Jha said Thursday. “We are working on a plan on that.”

The HHS official said one tool the federal government plans to use is a program called Section 317 that provides funding to procure and administer shots to uninsured adults at no cost.

ACA requirements

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