price hike for the covid vaccine. senator bernie sanders calls it outrageous. he joins us live. this is what we re watching this hour. thank you so much for being here. i m kate bolduan. two big stories we re tracking. first, a major outage is causing huge flight disruptions. thousands of flights are delayed or canceled. rue now the faa did lift the ground stop that par liesed domestic air travel. the cause still unclear right now, even as airlines are starting to get flights back up in the air. we re also keeping a very close eye on the deadly storms in california. at least 17 people have been killed from what is now weeks of rain, floods, mudslides, and was some pretty big winds. as bad as it is already, more rain is still on the way. let s start with pete muntean. he s at reagan national airport. pete, a computer outage that absolutely no one needed right now. what is happening? reporter: no doubt, kate. the cascading effect is only beginning. 6100 at last check a flight
story. this vaccine was discovered in partnership with the niih, with a government agency supported by the taxpayers in this country. in addition, the government put $1.9 billion into research for moderna, and guaranteed billions in sales. then, as a thank you to the taxpayers of this country, what moderna says is, after we deplete the government supply of free vaccines, they re going to quadruple the price of that vaccine. meanwhile, they re going to charge whatever it is a vaccine, it costs them about $2 to produce that vaccine. then, on top of all of that, in the last few years, since this vaccine has been on the market, you ve got the ceo of the company making billions, becoming a multibillionaire, as well as other executives. the taxpayers of this country,
a price hike that could impact really everyone. the wall street journal is reporting moderna is considering more than quadrupling the price of its covid vaccine. this would all come when the company shifts from the government contracts to putting the vaccine out on the commercial market. elizabeth cohen joins us now with more details on what this could mean for everyone. what is going on? this means the most for people who are unissued or underissued. if you have insurance, your insurance will pay for this vaccine, and in the end, i guess we all pay for that, but for the uninsured and underinsured, this will be a lot more money. while this has been a vaccine purchased by the federal government, paying about $26 a dose. now moderna is saying they re
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when is they met to confer and advise the fda and the cdc. kate? so interesting. elizabeth, thank you so much for that. joining me is senator bernie sanders, the incoming their of the senate health, pensions and labor committee. you wrote a letter to moderna, and you called this price hike outrageous. i want to also read what we have heard so far from moderna, the ceo telling wall street journal on monday i would think this type of price is consistent with the value of the vaccine. have you heard anything back from moderna? not yet, but look, what you are seeing here with moderna is the tip of the iceberg in temples of what goes on with the pharmaceutical industry. we paid by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, in some cases ten times more for the exact same drug sold in other countries. in terms of morna, here s the