Massachusetts state health insurers to be required to cover vaccines, regardless of CDC guidance

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BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts insurance carriers will be required to cover vaccinations recommended by the state’s department of public health, whether or not those vaccines continue to be recommended by the federal government, Gov. Maura Healey announced Thursday.

The Democratic governor issued a bulletin saying the move was to ensure Massachusetts residents can afford the vaccines they need and want, “even if the federal government issues narrower recommendations,” according to a press release.

The announcement comes after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s extensive restructuring and downsizing of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including the firing of former CDC Director Susan Monarez last month.

“Massachusetts has the best health care in the world,” Healey said in a statement. “We won’t let Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy get between patients and their doctors.”

For decades, the CDC has set the nation’s standards on vaccines — which ones are recommended and who should get them. The recommendations were guidance, not law. But they were automatically adopted by doctors, school systems, health insurers and others.

Vaccinations that Massachusetts insurers would be required to cover under Healey’s guidance include respiratory virus vaccines, like COVID, flu and RSV, and routine vaccines for children, like measles, chickenpox, and Hepatitis B.

In Washington, Kennedy facing pointed bipartisan questioning at a rancorous three-hour Senate committee hearing on Thursday, tried to defend his efforts to pull back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and explain the turmoil he has created at federal health agencies.

Kennedy testified that the fired CDC director was untrustworthy. He also stood by his past anti-vaccine rhetoric and disputed reports of people saying they have had difficulty getting COVID-19 shots.