The Biden administration is zeroing in on a plan to keep Covid vaccines, treatments and tests free for the uninsured into 2024, even as it plots a quicker wind-down of its broader pandemic response, four people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO.
The initiative represents a bid to allay fears that the most vulnerable Americans could be left without access to Covid care once the government exhausts its ability to purchase vaccines and treatments and shifts responsibility for distributing them to the private market.
Biden officials expect the so-called commercialization process to start in the second half of this year. But under its tentative plan, the administration would stockpile a limited supply of shots, treatments and tests that could be distributed freely to the uninsured well after the U.S. transitions out of its current crisis era.