Bills propose requiring private insurance, Medicaid to cover vaccines in Pennsylvania

(WHTM) — A bill package proposes requiring vaccines to be covered by private insurance and Medicaid in Pennsylvania.

The bills, proposed by State Senators Maria Collett (D-12), Nick Pisciottano (D-45), and Vincent Hughes (D-7), would require coverage by private insurance without cost-sharing and Medicaid. The vaccines must be approved by the FDA and recommended by professional medical societies that represent pediatricians, obstetricians and gynecologists, internists, or primary care/family physicians in their immunization schedules.

In a co-sponsorship memo, Sen. Collett says vaccines are essential to protect people from diseases and have saved 154 million lives worldwide over the last 50 years; however the recent changes to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), who make recommendations under the Affordable Care Act and the Vaccines for Children program on vaccine coverage and use in the United States, have “raised concerns about the relevant experience of the new appointees and their potential to restrict or eliminate the use of life-saving immunizations without scientific justification.”

The package includes two bills, with one bill requiring vaccines to be covered by private insurance and the other requiring Medicaid coverage. Both would cover vaccines that are FDA-approved and recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Physicians, or the American Academy of Family Physicians, per their immunization schedules that have been historically developed with scientific evidence and relied upon in clinical practice.

The memo says the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices must continue to recommend current Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved vaccines, as a failure to do so would “increase long-term healthcare spending, strain our already stretched-thin healthcare infrastructure, and, most importantly, leave all Pennsylvanians susceptible to preventable illnesses or diseases.”