US insurers’ move to back vaccines sends ‘powerful’ message about safety of shots, experts say

A group of insurers will continue covering routine vaccines through 2027 as the Trump administration once again takes aim at the shots and outbreaks of preventable illnesses such as measles and whooping cough lead to hospitalizations and deaths. Experts told the Guardian that the move has raised questions ahead of the November midterms, but certainly indicates that insurance companies believe vaccines are “safe and effective”. AHIP, the national trade organization representing the insurance industry in the US, announced at the end of May that its members will continue covering routine vaccines through 2027, an extension of a similar policy for 2026, after a halt to the controversial decisions made by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (Acip). The decision is a “powerful” example of how insurance companies, which have detailed data on health outcomes after vaccination and vaccine-preventable illnesses alike, “are clearly choosing to cover vaccines because they know that they are safe and effective,” said Elizabeth Jacobs, an epidemiology professor at the University of Arizona and a founding member of the grassroots organization Defend Public Health. “They understand that there is a benefit there to people being vaccinated, especially kids, and I’m sure they’ve run the numbers and they know that it will cost them a heck of a lot more to treat kids with measles who are hospitalized than it is to pay for vaccines,” Jacobs added. …