The U.S. government is planning to stop paying for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, and shift the bill onto the health care industry and eventually the consumer—possibly making it one of the first countries to end the practice of giving out coronavirus vaccines for free.

The Department of Health and Human Services will hold a planning session on Aug. 30, the Wall Street Journal reported, to bring together representatives from the health care industry as well as state health departments, to discuss the commercialization of COVID-19 treatments.

The move comes a few days after White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha confirmed on Tuesday that the Biden Administration had taken steps to get past the crisis phase of the pandemic and stop buying vaccines, treatments, and tests as early as fall.

“One of the things we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about in the last many months…is getting us out of that acute emergency phase where the U.S. government is buying the vaccines, buying the treatments, buying the diagnostic tests,” Jha said at an event sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

“My hope is that in 2023, you’re going to see the commercialization of almost all of these products. Some of that is actually going to begin this fall, in the days and weeks ahead,” Jha said.

https://fortune.com/2022/08/19/free-covid-19-vaccines-may-be-coming-to-an-end-for-americans/