More Nations Ramp Up Pressure On US To Share Vaccines, Loosen Patents

Politico: White House Struggle To Define Its Vaccine Diplomacy Leaves Ukraine Hanging 
The Biden administration’s recent decision to send coronavirus vaccines to India has created tensions with another key ally: Ukraine, which has ramped up its requests for vaccine aid ahead of a visit this week from Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration has been pressing Washington for help obtaining vaccines since December, before Donald Trump left office, according to multiple U.S. and Ukrainian officials. The conversations have continued in recent weeks at the diplomatic level, and officials said the pandemic — and Ukraine’s hope for U.S. assistance — was a backdrop for a 50-minute phone call between Zelensky and Biden on April 2. (Banco and Herszenhorn, 5/3)

Bloomberg: White House Backs Pfizer’s Move To Begin Vaccine Exports
The Biden administration is supporting Pfizer Inc.’s move to begin exporting U.S.-made doses of its coronavirus vaccine, as the White House starts to unleash production for shot-starved nations abroad. “We are glad to see that they are working with other countries to help them meet their supply needs,” Jeff Zients, President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 response coordinator, told Bloomberg News in a statement. He said the company is ahead of schedule in its commitments to supply the U.S. (Wingrove, 5/3)

The New York Times: Pressure Mounts to Lift Patent Protections on Coronavirus Vaccines
President Biden, faced with surging Covid-19 crises in India and South America, is under intensifying pressure from the international community and his party’s left flank to commit to increasing the vaccine supply by loosening patent and intellectual property protections on coronavirus vaccines. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies, also feeling pressure, sought on Monday to head off such a move, which could cut into future profits and jeopardize their business model. Pfizer and Moderna, two major vaccine makers, each announced steps to increase the supply of vaccine around the world. (Stolberg, Kaplan and Robbins, 5/3)

AP: AP FACT CHECK: Biden Overstates How Many Americans Immunized
President Joe Biden on Monday vastly overstated the number of Americans who’ve been vaccinated against COVID-19. And when addressing the racial gap in vaccinations, he claimed progress that is not apparent in the statistics. (Woodward, 5/3)

In other news from the Biden administration —

Stat: Biden’s Medicaid Pressure Tactics Could Put His Team At Odds With Hospitals
The Biden administration is pressuring states to expand Medicaid — and it’s setting up a tussle with the hospital industry, too. The Biden team is running out of options to ensure coverage for low-income people in states that have chosen not to expand coverage under the Affordable Care Act. An early overture in Texas reveals one of its strategies: There, the administration is forcing state officials to renegotiate an agreement that gives hospitals money for uninsured patients, and hospitals are nervous that their funding could be cut in the process. (Cohrs, 5/4)

KHN: Democrats Disagree About How To Spend Potential Prescription Drug Windfall 
One of the few surprises in President Joe Biden’s social safety-net proposal, the American Families Plan, was something that didn’t make it into the final version: any mention of reining in the price of prescription drugs. The American Families Plan, the second part of Biden’s expansive “infrastructure” agenda, includes sweeping programs aimed at boosting access to child care, higher education and paid family leave. But despite White House signals in March that health also would be a major part of the package, the only health proposal was one that would make permanent the temporary subsidy increases, passed as part of the covid relief bill earlier this spring, on insurance purchased through the Affordable Care Act’s health exchanges. (Rovner, 5/4)