The U.S. government unveiled plans to give all Americans a free COVID-19 vaccine in early January.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. The Department of Defense jointly released two documents Wednesday, outlining the Trump administration’s vaccine distribution strategy amid the coronavirus epidemic. According to the Strategic Delivery Overview, the goal is to deliver safe and effective vaccine doses at sites with “no apparent cost to providers and no cost to vaccine recipients.”
“No American has to pay a penny out of pocket for a vaccine,” Paul Carey, deputy chief of staff for policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told reporters Wednesday.
The cost of administering the vaccine dose will be reimbursed to health care providers, but that fee will not be borne by the patients and will instead be paid by the commercial insurer or Medicaid. For indefinite patients, the costs will be covered by the Administration Provider Relief Fund.
Officials are still releasing details for insurers through Medicare fee-for-service programs. “They’ll have to pay the most out of pocket which will be 3. 3.50 per shot, but we’re working on that,” Kerry said.
Kerry noted that some details of the plan will not be known until the COVID-19 vaccine has been approved or approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
He told reporters, “We are operating in a world of great uncertainty. So this is a really extraordinary, logically complex undertaking and there are a lot of uncertainties right now.”
The report was contributed by ABC News’ Sonny Salzman.
