Covid-19 Vaccination Costs to Strain State Medicaid Programs

Getting millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses to the poorest adults in the country will require budget-conscious Medicaid plans to get creative with dwindling resources and a patchy health-care system not designed for mass inoculation.

Congress boosted funds to states and patched holes in vaccination coverage for some low-income adults during the pandemic. But the extra funding expires when the public health emergency ends, and some Medicaid analysts worry that without more, states will have to cut budgets for other health programs to ensure they can afford to distribute a virus vaccine.

Efficient distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine is an essential ...