We know that COVID-19 vaccines saved nearly 3 million lives, prevented 12.5 million hospitalizations, and saved $500 billion in hospitalization costs. The human and economic benefits of the vaccines were (and still are) astonishing.
The public-private response to the pandemic – Operation Warp Speed – was nothing short of extraordinary – miraculous really – in the history of science and medicine. What usually takes up to ten years, America’s innovative bio-pharmaceutical companies accomplished – the design and testing of a new vaccine – in less than ten months.
The public emergency is over. However, even now – four years after the pandemic – physicians and public health experts, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), tell us that COVID still poses serious health risks. And those risks are higher for adults aged 65 and older.
Take your medicine to avoid an unexpected trip to the emergency room or to protect yourself from a costly stay at the hospital. Good health sense – as it turns out – makes good economic sense too.
All the facts and information shout at us – our experience through the COVID crisis shows us – that vaccines save lives and money. Vaccines are worth more than they cost. And for seniors, the shot is covered by Medicare – all ACIP-recommended vaccines are required to be covered with zero cost sharing to patients. This includes Part B vaccines, such as flu, pneumococcal and COVID-19, and more recently Part D vaccines, such as RSV and shingles. This is crucial to our health systems because lower or no co-pays for vaccines leads to higher adherence.
Regardless of one’s political persuasion, lowering the cost of health care and increasing medical access are shared goals by both the left and right. ‘Lower Costs; More Care’ sounds like a winning campaign strategy.
According to the CDC:
Regardless of what we know is good health and economic sense, 3 out of 4 adults still miss at least one routinely recommended vaccine to prevent illnesses like flu and pneumonia. What’s more, there is growing concern that insurers and Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) will restrict patient access to vaccines. PBMs determine what pharmacies are paid to purchase and dispense each medication. On vaccine adherence, one of the most trusted professionals, community pharmacists, may be severely limited on what they can provide to their patients. Insurers and PBMs anxious to save a dollar for themselves will ultimately hurt the rest of us in terms of our health and wealth.
Dr. Henry I. Miller wrote recently: “there is a saying in the infectious disease community that vaccines don’t prevent illnesses; vaccinations do.” And, AEI's Kirsten Axelson commented at a webinar hosted by RealClearHealth that “vaccines are one of the few truly cost-effective health care interventions.”
So, what good is a vaccine if Americans can’t have access to them? Vaccination is a pillar of disease prevention – cost effective and life enhancing – but Americans are under-vaccinated. If we limit access to vaccines at America’s pharmacies, we will face another health crisis.
The pandemic created opportunities to make health care more affordable and accessible – Operation Warp Speed was the most demonstrably successful pandemic program. It showed that when the public sector and the private sector work together, medical progress is achievable. However, blunders and hubris by some public health experts and the politicization of the pandemic itself helped cause an epidemic of vaccine hesitancy. Limiting access to only one vaccine option at pharmacies feeds into this hesitancy.
Our experience informs us that the more barriers put in place for patients, the less likely they are to adhere to routine heath recommendations. Where does limiting access to health care work? When we follow the science (vaccines good), we get good health outcomes (better quality of life). However, if we follow the PBMs and insurance ‘bean counters’ our health will go sideways.
It is critical to our health and our healthcare systems that we do all that is possible to follow the science, not the PBMs or the insurance administrators.
What do our doctors tell us? What do our neighborhood pharmacists tell us? Get vaccinated. It is one of the most cost-effective ways to stay healthy and protect our families. Vaccinations save lives and money. But we won’t see any of those savings if we can’t get access to them in the first place.
Getting vaccinated makes good sense. Let’s make sure we can all get them.
