January, 10 2023, 01:04pm EDT
In Letter to CEO, Sanders Calls Moderna Plan to Raise Price of COVID-19 Vaccine "Unacceptable Corporate Greed"
BURLINGTON, Vt.
Following news reports that the pharmaceutical corporation plans to quadruple its price for the COVID-19 vaccine up to $130 per dose, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the incoming chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, on Tuesday sent a letter to Moderna’s CEO urging the company to reconsider its decision and refrain from any price increase in light of the role the federal government has played in the development of the vaccine.
Sanders wrote: “The huge increase in price that you have proposed will have a significantly negative impact on the budgets of Medicaid, Medicare and other government programs that will continue covering the vaccine without cost-sharing for patients. Your decision will cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Your outrageous price boost will also increase private health insurance premiums. Perhaps most significantly, the quadrupling of prices will make the vaccine unavailable for many millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans who will not be able to afford it. How many of these Americans will die from COVID-19 as a result of limited access to these lifesaving vaccines? While nobody can predict the exact figure, the number could well be in the thousands. In the midst of a deadly pandemic, restricting access to this much needed vaccine is unconscionable.”
While the price hike planned by the company would make the lifesaving vaccine unaffordable for millions of Americans, estimates show that the cost of producing the vaccine is now as low as $2.85 per dose – 2.2% of what Moderna plans to charge. Meanwhile, over the last two years, Moderna made over $19 billion in profits off of the COVID-19 vaccine which they developed in partnership with scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a U.S. government agency that is funded by U.S. taxpayers. The federal government directly provided $1.7 billion to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine research and development, and guaranteed the company billions more in sales.
While nearly 1.1 million Americans died from COVID-19 in the last three years and over 100 million more have become ill, Moderna has used those profits to provide incredibly extravagant compensation packages to top officials at the company. In addition to CEO Bancel becoming a multi-billionaire as a direct result of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, with Forbes currently estimating his wealth at $6.1 billion, Noubar Afeyan, Moderna’s chairman and co-founder, is currently worth $2.1 billion; Robert Langer, another co-founder of Moderna, is now worth $2.2 billion; and Timothy Springer, a founding investor in Moderna is now worth $2.6 billion.
“The purpose of the recent taxpayer investment in Moderna was to protect the health and lives of the American people, not to turn a handful of corporate executives and investors into multi-billionaires,” Sanders wrote to CEO Bancel. “As you know, the federal government, over the years, has supported Moderna every step of the way going back to 2013 when your company reportedly only had three employees. Now, in the midst of a continuing public health crisis and a growing federal deficit, is not the time for Moderna to be quadrupling the price of this vaccine. Now is not the time for unacceptable corporate greed.”
Read the full letter, here.
The text of the full letter is below.
Dear Mr. Bancel:
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Moderna is considering more than quadrupling the price of its COVID vaccine after the supply that the U.S. government purchased, and distributed to Americans at no cost, is depleted. Instead of charging $26.36 per dose, the price that the government paid, Moderna has indicated that the commercial price will go up to as much as $130 per dose.
I have very deep concerns about that decision and the impact that it will have on the federal budget, the cost of private insurance and the unnecessary deaths that may occur because millions of Americans may not be able to afford the vaccine at the new cost.
I am writing to ask you to reconsider your decision and refrain from any price increases.
The huge increase in price that you have proposed will have a significantly negative impact on the budgets of Medicaid, Medicare and other government programs that will continue covering the vaccine without cost-sharing for patients. Your decision will cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Your outrageous price boost will also increase private health insurance premiums. Perhaps most significantly, the quadrupling of prices will make the vaccine unavailable for many millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans who will not be able to afford it. How many of these Americans will die from COVID-19 as a result of limited access to these lifesaving vaccines? While nobody can predict the exact figure, the number could well be in the thousands. In the midst of a deadly pandemic, restricting access to this much needed vaccine is unconscionable.
I find your decision particularly offensive given the fact that the vaccine was jointly developed in partnership with scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a U.S. government agency that is funded by U.S. taxpayers. The federal government directly provided $1.7 billion to your company for research and development, and guaranteed your company billions more in sales. In other words, you propose to make the vaccine unaffordable for the residents of this country who made the production of the vaccine possible. That is not acceptable.
Mr. Bancel: In the last two years, Moderna made over $19 billion in profits and used those profits to provide incredibly extravagant compensation packages to you and other top officials at your company. It is reported that you, yourself, became a multi-billionaire as a direct result of Moderna’s COVID vaccine with Forbes currently estimating your wealth at $6.1 billion.
Moreover, Noubar Afeyan, Moderna’s chairman and co-founder is currently worth $2.1 billion. Robert Langer, another co-founder of Moderna, is now worth $2.2 billion. Timothy Springer, a founding investor in Moderna is now worth $2.6 billion. Further, my understanding is that Moderna approved a $926 million golden parachute for you once you leave the company along with $160 million for Stephen Hoge (Moderna’s president) and $53 million for Juan Andres (Moderna’s chief technical officer).
I should point out that all of this corporate welfare and profiteering has taken place in the midst of the worst public health crisis in America in 100 years. In the last three years, nearly 1.1 million Americans died from COVID-19 and over 100 million more have become ill. It has also been estimated that the cost of producing the vaccine is now as low as $2.85 per dose – 2.2% of what Moderna has suggested charging to the public.
Let’s be clear: The purpose of the recent taxpayer investment in Moderna was to protect the health and lives of the American people, not to turn a handful of corporate executives and investors into multi-billionaires.
As you know, the federal government, over the years, has supported Moderna every step of the way going back to 2013 when your company reportedly only had three employees. Now, in the midst of a continuing public health crisis and a growing federal deficit, is not the time for Moderna to be quadrupling the price of this vaccine. Now is not the time for unacceptable corporate greed.
As the incoming Chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in the United States Senate, I look forward to hearing your response in the very near future.
Sincerely,
Bernard Sanders
United States Senator
LATEST NEWS
Vance Stuns by Calling Trump ‘Only Head of State in the Entire World Who Is Sympathetic’ to Israel
One columnist called it "probably the toughest public criticism offered by a US administration towards Israel in my lifetime."
Jun 18, 2026
Vice President JD Vance stunned observers on Thursday with some of the bluntest criticism issued to Israel by a US presidential administration in recent memory as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues his attempts to sabotage peace with Iran.
Noting the indignance and defiance of Netanyahu and his cabinet in response to the memorandum of understanding signed this week by Trump—which calls on Israel to withdraw from Lebanon and end its ethnic cleansing campaign there—Vance said Israel's leaders were in the midst of a “weird panic” and "freakout" during a New York Times interview on Thursday.
"You’re a country of 9 million people," he said. "You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.”
⭕️ JD Vance’s message to Israel:
“You’re a country of 9 million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.”
Noting that significant segments of the Israeli population and political system are anxious about the deal,… pic.twitter.com/HD2Z9WxjEb
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) June 18, 2026
It comes on the heels of Trump's own criticism of Israel's tactics in Lebanon earlier this week, describing its bombing of an apartment building—one of countless attacks on civilian infrastructure—as "vicious" and "too much," before claiming that "without me, there would be no Israel."
Vance went even further later on Thursday during a press conference at the White House, reminding Israel's leaders that they've made their country an international pariah.
"My message to them would be twofold. No. 1: Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time," Vance said. "If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world."
In a style reminiscent of his infamous Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last year, he later took Israel's leaders to task over what he described as ingratitude for America's support, which has included roughly $4 billion in military assistance each year and even more since Israel began its genocidal military campaign against Gaza in 2023 in response to Hamas' October 7 attacks.
The weapons Israel uses, Vance stressed, "have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars." He added, "The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that the country is in."
In a marked shift from earlier this year, when the administration had cosigned Israel's attacks on Lebanon even at the cost of ceasefire negotiations, Vance on Thursday called on Israel to "respect this peace process" and called Israel's attacks on civilians "unacceptable."
Just as observers have been bewildered by Trump's sudden acknowledgment of Iran's rights to possess ballistic missiles and to pursue nuclear energy, many were similarly caught off guard by Vance's abrupt acknowledgment of truths about Israel that have been apparent to most of the world for years.
JD Vance is not changing the conversation about Israel in the US. He is changing the entire paradigm:
He is reminding the Israelis that they are alone and - though he doesn't use this word - much disliked internationally. Israel should not undermine the only strong friend they… pic.twitter.com/ZnqVTjve9R
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) June 18, 2026
"JD Vance is not changing the conversation about Israel in the US. He is changing the entire paradigm," said Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. "He is reminding the Israelis that they are alone and—though he doesn't use this word—much disliked internationally. Israel should not undermine the only strong friend they have left."
Washington Post columnist Shadi Hamid agreed that it was "probably the toughest public criticism offered by a US administration towards Israel in my lifetime," adding that "we'll see if it gets translated into action or if it's just rhetoric, but it's still much more than the Biden administration could ever manage."
The naked cynicism of the flip-flop was apparent to many, given the Trump administration's slavish deference to Israel up to the point that it became political poison.
College students who have said similar things to Vance about Israel's killing of civilians have found themselves facing deportation, while International Criminal Court officials who have attempted to hold Israeli officials criminally liable for war crimes have found themselves sanctioned by the US.
That is to say nothing of Trump's willingness to follow Netanyahu's lead into a disastrous and unpopular war with Iran despite warnings from his own cabinet that he was being manipulated.
"It would be nice if they had this posture from January 2025," journalist Zaid Jilani said of Vance's comments on Thursday. "Might have helped save Trump's presidency."
Alexander Langlois, a contributing fellow at the anti-interventionist think tank Defense Priorities, described it as a deeply calculated maneuver to simultaneously show Israel who is boss in front of a nation growing wary of its influence while also reiterating America's support.
"Vance is drawing a line. The White House is absolutely trying to use its power and influence to get not only Republicans, but Israel, in line," he said.
Still, despite doubts, it was hard to overstate the gravity of the shift underway, at least rhetorically.
"It could all lead to nothing, or worse—a joint US-Israel resumption of the war," said journalist Glenn Greenwald. "But there hasn't been a week where American leaders have spoken so sternly, clearly, truthfully and decisively about Israel since... well, perhaps ever."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Good News, But It's a Low Bar': Trump Backtracks on Plan to Kill Ocean Monitoring Program
"Trump is backing off from doing something incredibly stupid, so we celebrate."
Jun 18, 2026
The Trump administration on Thursday backed off a widely criticized plan to dismantle a deep-sea monitoring system designed to provide crucial storm forecasting data while also tracking the health of coastal habitats and the impacts of the climate crisis on the world's oceans.
In an announcement posted on its website, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) said it "will not proceed with further removal or descoping of equipment" from the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), less than a month after it revealed plans to remove more than 900 instruments deployed along US coastlines.
NSF also said that it would continue planned maintenance operations on the remaining systems, while also creating plans to redeploy that Endurance Array, which is a set of long-term moorings set up in the Pacific Northwest, after it undergoes equipment servicing.
"NSF remains committed to ocean sciences," the announcement concluded, "to responsible stewardship of its research infrastructure and to supporting the stakeholders that depend on it."
The decision to end OOI drew bipartisan backlash in Congress, as the Republican-controlled US Senate on Wednesday passed a measure to block the administration from further removing ocean monitoring equipment.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who led the Senate effort to block the Trump administration's OOI plans alongside Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), described the removal of ocean monitoring systems as "supreme stupidity" that would destroy "a vital source of climate data."
The timing of NSF’s decision to dismantle the system was particularly controversial given concerns over planetary heating and the growing threat of extreme weather, especially as the return of El Niño this year is expected to unleash larger and more damaging meteorological events in the near future.
In response to Thursday's announcement, the Democratic National Committee’s Environment and Climate Council described the reversal on OOI as a rare sensible decision for a Trump administration that has been overtly hostile to climate science.
"Good news. But it's a low bar," the council wrote in a social media post. "Trump is backing off from doing something incredibly stupid, so we celebrate."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Susan Collins Ads Brag About $190 Million for Rural Hospitals. It’s a Band-Aid on the Gaping Wound She Helped Inflict
The Republican senator running for a sixth term has postured as a champion of rural healthcare, but the Medicaid cuts she voted to advance are set to devastate vulnerable communities in Maine and across the US.
Jun 18, 2026
In recent weeks, Mainers have been inundated with ads touting Republican Sen. Susan Collins' role in securing passage of a $50 billion fund aimed at shoring up beleaguered rural healthcare systems across the US—including $190 million earmarked for her state.
But the ads, purchased by Collins' campaign directly and by the dark money group One Nation, neglect to mention a key fact: The Republican budget law that implements the Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) also contains the largest cuts to Medicaid in the program's history, rendering the $50 billion fund a mere Band-Aid on a massive wound.
According to one analysis, the GOP law's estimated cuts to federal Medicaid spending in rural areas over the next decade will amount to nearly triple the RHTP's funding. Maine is expected to lose nearly $3 billion in federal Medicaid funds over the next 10 years due to the Republican law—a massive hit that the pro-Collins campaign ads predictably avoid.
Collins, who is running for a sixth term against Democratic nominee Graham Platner, emphasizes that she voted against final passage of the GOP budget legislation, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). But Collins cast a decisive procedural vote that allowed the bill, which also delivered massive tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations, to advance to the Senate floor, where her Republican colleagues did the rest. President Donald Trump signed the bill into law last summer.
"Susan Collins is only bipartisan when it doesn't matter," declares a 30-second ad unveiled Wednesday by the Platner campaign, which highlighted the incumbent senator's vote to advance the OBBBA and pilloried her reputation as a "moderate."
The Republican law's Medicaid cuts, which total nearly $1 trillion, are expected to cost Maine hospitals $66 million per year in revenue and strip health coverage from tens of thousands of residents—projections that Collins' ads omit.
"Maine will be forced to offset budget holes caused by this bill by terminating coverage for families, eliminating essential health services, and cutting provider rates so drastically that doctors and hospitals are forced to close their doors—particularly in rural communities," the advocacy group Families USA warned in an analysis of the Republican budget measure. "Hospitals like Cary Medical Center and Northern Light AR Gould Hospital in Aroostook County, Northern Light Maine Coast Hospital in Hancock County, and Calais Community Hospital in Washington County will be at greater financial risk of closing due to Medicaid cuts in the bill."
"While more funding for rural healthcare is always welcome, political messaging about new funding cannot obscure the reality for states."
Nationwide, the impacts of the Medicaid cuts—which include new work requirements and other bureaucratic barriers—are expected to be devastating for years to come. A tracker maintained by Protect Our Care shows that more than 1,000 hospitals, clinics, wards, and nursing homes are "facing closure or cuts" following OBBBA's passage.
Maine Family Planning, the state's largest network of reproductive health clinics, was forced to end primary care services late last year due to the Republican budget law.
“Behind each pin is a story,” Anne Shoup, senior adviser to Protect Our Care, said Wednesday, referencing the markers on the group's hospital closure tracker. "Whether it’s an expectant mother losing access to prenatal care after the nearest rural hospital was forced to close its maternity ward, or seniors driving hours each way for care that used to be down the road, or people with disabilities facing gaps in caregiving that allow them to stay in their own homes, these pins represent our neighbors, our parents, and our kids. They deserve better than to have their healthcare gutted to write a check to the ultra-wealthy.”
The health policy organization KFF has said it is "highly unlikely that any state will receive more money from the rural health fund than it will lose" from Medicaid cuts and other federal policy changes, calling into question Collins' characterization of the RHTP money as transformative for Maine's rural healthcare system.
"RHTP is like lending someone a bucket to catch rain from a leaking roof," Mark Shaffer, an analyst at the Maine Center for Economic Policy, wrote last month. "It’s too small to hold what’s falling and is taken away before the roof ever gets fixed. The cruel irony is while hospitals scramble to manage the leak, millions of Americans have simply been pushed out of the system entirely and left to fend for themselves. And this was all done to support tax cuts for the wealthy."
A 30-second pro-Collins ad released earlier this year by One Nation—a GOP-aligned dark money group that has already dropped $20 million on ads supporting the Republican incumbent—described the $190 million in RHTP funds awarded to Maine for the first year of the program as quite literally lifesaving.
The problem, as the Maine Beacon pointed out, is that "no funds had actually been distributed at the time Collins’ ad aired in mid-March 2026."
"In fact, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services did not receive full approval for the program’s budget until the end of March, weeks after the ad began running," the Beacon observed. "State officials said during a Rural Health Fund Seminar on March 31 that they are still working to finalize contracts and hire staff, with funds not expected to be distributed until later in 2026."
In a March 27 statement, Collins took credit for preserving the $190 million in federal rural health funding for Maine, claiming it was "at risk" of being rescinded and reallocated by the Trump administration. (In early April, the office of Maine Gov. Janet Mills denied the funding was ever in jeopardy.)
Earlier this week, KFF Health News reported that Maine is one of several states that have been forced to make changes to their plans to spend the rural health funds as the Trump administration exerts "tight control" over the money. One restriction imposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—headed by Mehmet Oz—bars states from spending more than 15% of allotted RHTP funds on payments to rural hospitals and other providers for patient care.
Collins' ads celebrating the program as an unequivocal victory for rural healthcare include no mention of the spending limitation—which is not in the language of the GOP budget law—or the Trump administration's vice-like grip on the funds.
"It has frankly been surprising to me as a longtime observer of legislative officials, that the GOP members of Congress who were the cheerleaders of the RHTP as a rural hospital fund have not raised any substantial complaints as the Trump administration created this severe funding limit that impacts struggling rural hospitals in their own districts," Adam Searing, an associate professor at Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families, wrote in March.
"While more funding for rural healthcare is always welcome," wrote Searing, "political messaging about new funding cannot obscure the reality for states."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular