Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said the company’s COVID-19 vaccine will be “free for all Americans” because insurance companies and other groups will pay the cost, although critics have said his claims aren’t true. “Americans will see no difference,” Bourla told STAT Summit last week. STAT is a health care publication. The vaccine, he added, will “be free for them to get, regardless of the insurance they have.”
However, Bourla did not mention whether uninsured Americans would have to pay for the vaccine. Currently, the federal government is paying Pfizer $30 per dose of the mRNA vaccine and has been distributing it to the public.
The drug giant announced in October that it would raise the price of its vaccine to $130 per dose after the federal government uses up the vials it has purchased and the vaccine goes on the open market in 2023 when the U.S. public health emergency expires. David Mitchell, co-founder of advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs, said in a recent interview that Bourla’s comments were not truthful. Speaking to the Daily Mail, he said that taxpayers, patients, consumers, and others would eventually foot the bill for the vaccine.