>Last night I saw Bernie make this statement:
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> "Under the Trump doctrine, if you are wealthy you can buy a vaccine and not succumb to the sickness. If you are poor or working class, you may have to get sick or even die. That is an outrage. That is unacceptable. We need a vaccine that is available to all."
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>Even though Bernie and I are about the same age, he and I must have grown up in different Americas. I remember the Salk polio vaccine. Everybody had the measles, mumps(lucky if you were a boy), whooping cough and chicken pox but we all feared polio. Every class in my school had a member that had polio (58,000 cases in 1952). I couldn't remember the exact year we all got the polio shots so I looked it up in Wikipedia. From the dates in Wikipedia I must have been in the 440,000 that were part of the test.I got the shot while I was in elementary school which I finished in June of 1955, The results of the test were released in April of 1955 and the vaccine was licensed later in the year. Then, virtually all kids got the shot so by 1957 there were 5,600 and by 1961 only 161 cases. What I know to be a fact doesn't match what I read in Wikipedia in regards to the Sabin oral vaccine. I know that while I was in high school we all received the Sabin sugar cube prior to June 1960. Wikipedia says that the Sabin vaccine wasn't released until 1961.
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>The point I'm trying to make is that in those days there was no Medicare or Medicaid and the kids I went to school with were from lower to middle income families, many without medical insurance . But, we all got the vaccine - mostly paid for by the March of Dimes, a private charity. I don't think it would be any different today.

I think you're right.
The CVS here advertises free flu shots and local schools offer other vaccinations.

I think Bernie's point is that there are tens of millions of people in the US who can't afford any medical treatment or insurance but at least in the states where I've lived, poor kids, including my brother and myself way back, could be vaccinated at no cost.