In the wake of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) announcing plans to revisit its recommended schedule for childhood vaccinations—a move that has drawn widespread criticism from experts—major insurers have not confirmed whether they’ll continue to cover the full cost of routine shots for children.
For 60 years ACIP has provided vaccine guidance to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including on the timing and dosage of childhood immunizations. Insurers are required to cover the cost of most jabs on the recommended schedule for children. On Wednesday, June 25, ACIP announced it would review the schedule, just weeks after health secretary and longtime anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. replaced the entire committee with his own appointees.
When WIRED then asked 21 of the country’s largest health insurance groups whether they would stop providing cost-free coverage of current routine immunizations in the event ACIP stops recommending them, only Blue Shield of California—a company in the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association—confirmed it would continue coverage.
“As a payer our role is to ensure ongoing coverage and access to preventive, evidence-based care, including immunizations,” says company spokesperson Mark Seelig. “Therefore, Blue Shield of California is committed to maintaining coverage of immunizations. The decision on whether to receive a vaccine is between our member and their provider.”
Other large insurers, including UnitedHealthcare (which provides coverage for 50 million people), Cigna, Kaiser Permanente, Anthem, Humana, and Centene Corporation, did not respond to requests for comment. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan said it had no comment.
Most insurers that did respond said they were keeping an eye on developments in Washington, without indicating whether they would or would not cover vaccines dropped from the recommended schedule.
“Vaccines play an important role in the prevention of more serious illnesses,” says Phil Blando, a spokesperson at CVS Health, which owns the insurer Aetna. “We are monitoring any changes the federal government makes to vaccination guidance and eligibility and will evaluate whether coverage adjustments are needed.”
Highmark Inc., part of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, operating in Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, and New York, is also waiting to see what decision ACIP reaches. “We are closely monitoring the evolving vaccine discussions occurring in Washington, DC. Various vaccines and immunizations are covered under Highmark’s member benefits, with any future coverage considerations to be evaluated as more information becomes available,” says spokesperson Aaron Billger.
Bryan Campen, of Health Care Service Corporation—the licensee of Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas—notes that no changes have yet been made to the vaccines ACIP recommends or the company’s vaccine coverage, but says that the company will “continue to monitor any activity that may impact preventive care recommendations and will communicate any changes to recommendations that may impact standard coverage of preventive services.”
Insurers had an eye on changes in ACIP guidance even before the committee announced it would revisit the schedule. “As we navigate an evolving health care landscape, maintaining robust immunization coverage continues to be a top priority for protecting both individual and community health,” the industry’s trade association, AHIP, said in a June 24 statement, the day before ACIP’s announcement.
“We are committed to ongoing coverage of vaccines to ensure access and affordability for this respiratory virus season,” the statement continued. “We encourage all Americans to talk to their health care provider about vaccines.”
ACIP made headlines in early June when RFK Jr. fired all 17 of its members and replaced them with eight new appointees. (The HHS secretary appoints the committee’s members, but conventionally they serve fixed four-year terms.) These new appointees include Retsef Levi, who has stated—in the face of scientific consensus—that mRNA vaccines are deadly, and Robert Malone, who routinely shares articles about supposed links between cancer and the Covid vaccine, which no credible research has found to exist. Neither Levi nor Malone replied to a request for comment.
Michael A. Ross, another recently appointed committee member, resigned from ACIP during a review of his financial holdings, The New York Times reported on June 24. When introducing his new ACIP appointees in a post on X earlier in June, RFK Jr. had described Ross as a faculty member at George Washington and Virginia Commonwealth universities—but spokespeople for the universities told NBC News4 that Ross had not taught at either in years. Ross did not reply to a request for comment.
The committee made news again on June 25 when, during its first meeting of the year, it announced it would form a working group to review the recommended immunization schedule for children and teens.
“The number of vaccines that our children and adolescents receive today exceed what children in most other developed nations receive, and what most of us in this room received when we [were] children,” ACIP chair Martin Kulldorff said during the meeting.
He noted that the group would examine the “cumulative effect” of the recommended vaccine schedule, including interactions between vaccines, the total number of vaccines given, their timing, and recipients’ exposure to vaccine ingredients.
But the process for adding vaccines to the schedule is already rigorous. Before a vaccine can receive FDA licensure, its manufacturer must prove it does not negatively affect the safety or immune response of other vaccines administered at the same time on the schedule, says Paul Offit, director of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Vaccine Education Center.
In addition, “the notion that these vaccines are somehow weakening your immune system or overwhelming your immune system is fanciful,” Offit says. Today, children are exposed to fewer viral or bacterial proteins in the first few years of the vaccine schedule than those in earlier generations. When Offit’s parents received the smallpox vaccine, they were exposed to 200 proteins in a single shot. In contrast, the measles vaccine only contains 10.
During the meeting, Kulldorff repeated claims he made in 2024 that he was fired from Harvard because he refused to get the Covid vaccine; he and Malone have also each served as paid expert witnesses in two separate suits against Merck over the safety of the company’s HPV vaccine and its mumps vaccine, respectively. Kulldorff did not reply to a request for comment.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) did not send representatives to last week’s ACIP meeting, as it typically does. According to Academy president Susan Kressly, this was because the AAP believes the vaccine recommendation process lost credibility when its original membership was gutted by Kennedy.
“We won’t lend our name or our expertise to a system that is being politicized at the expense of children’s health,” Kressly said in a video posted online before the meeting was set to begin. The AAP did not reply to a request for comment about the video.
The most recent child immunization schedule that the AAP endorses, from November 2024, is posted on the AAP website. A newer one, posted on the CDC site, has already changed recommendations. It no longer lists as “routine” Covid vaccines for children under 18 who are not immunocompromised but instead lists them under vaccines recommended for “shared clinical decision-making,” informed by “personal preference and circumstances.” The change should not affect insurance coverage.
