The costs of treating unvaccinated people for coronavirus infections were $5.7 billion between June and August of 2021, a new report from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation has concluded. In the world of health care, that might not be much. Americans spent about $3.8 trillion dollars on health care in 2019, so $5.7 billion represents just 0.15% of overall health care spending.
But in the world that most of us live in, $5.9 billion is a lot. It represents a staggering loss that didn’t have to happen.
Since mid-April, safe and effective vaccines have been available without charge to virtually every American adult. Yet only 63% of Americans are fully vaccinated; 25% have yet to receive a single shot of the vaccine. In three Missouri counties, 75% of residents haven’t had a single shot.
