Here's why Obamacare would likely make any coronavirus vaccine free for patients — and prove critical in fighting the disease
Yet one layer of the healthcare system could help Americans save a lot of money on a potential coronavirus vaccine: the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
A little-known provision of Obamacare would likely make any coronavirus vaccine free for most people with health insurance. Plus, the law expanded insurance coverage for roughly 20 million Americans and widened access to medical care. Those components underscoreacross the healthcare sector and its potential to form a pillar in a federal strategy to combat the spread of a deadly, unknown disease.
"There's an important link between broader healthcare policies like the Affordable Care Act and responding to a potential public health emergency like this virus," Larry Levitt, the executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Business Insider. Levitt added that providing people access to inexpensive healthcare is "key to both preventing the spread of a virus like this and getting people who are sick treated."The development of a vaccine that successfully treats COVID-19 is still far off — at least a year in federally-recommended vaccines at no cost for most people, according to John Cogan, a professor of health insurance law and financial regulation at the University of Connecticut.
"Everyone under Obamacare would be covered under this vaccination without cost-sharing," Cogan told Business Insider. That would extend to the health insurance people get through their employers, as well as to most health insurance programs like Medicaid for children and people with low incomes, he said.
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