Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) blasted President Donald Trump’s recent executive order overhauling the childhood vaccine schedule, saying it will raise costs for patients and make vaccines less accessible.
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Trump signed an executive order last week to unbundle the childhood MMR vaccine into three separate shots. Trump defended the move as sparing children from a combination that he said was “sort of like a nuclear weapon.”
“Yeah, that’s a crazy, stupid thing,” Cassidy said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” referring to Trump’s remark. “This is why the president’s poll numbers are going down, because people don’t perceive that he knows the reality of their life.”
Cassidy said separating the vaccines would yield no medical benefits while burdening parents with the added costs of multiple doctor visits for their children. This could reduce the rates of vaccination, potentially endangering people with immune-system vulnerabilities, such as pregnant women, he said.
“If you’re pro-life, you should be pro-vaccine,” Cassidy said.
The senator also noted that insurance companies paying for more visits would raise premiums at a moment when health care costs are top of mind for voters.
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Cassidy, a physician, has been outspoken against the Trump administration’s attempts to redo vaccine schedules. Cassidy lost his reelection bid in May, falling to Rep. Julia Letlow in the Republican primary, and has since been increasingly willing to challenge the administration. He voted last year to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health and human secretary, despite the then-nominee’s past public skepticism about vaccines.
When asked about his vote to confirm Kennedy, Cassidy said, “You have to live life living forward.”
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