If you are planning to get a flu shot or COVID booster this fall, there is a bureaucratic fight happening in Washington right now that could determine whether your insurance covers it.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has published a newly rewritten charter for the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) — the federal body whose recommendations determine which vaccines are covered without a copay by private insurance, purchased free for low-income children through the Vaccines for Children program, and used by Medicare and Medicaid to set coverage policy. The new charter, dated May 14, 2026 and only recently made public, is the second rewrite of the committee's governing document since March, and it arrives at a moment when the committee has had no functioning quorum to make any official recommendations at all.
