Vaccines are free. Measles now costs $1.5 billion a year
Vaccines are one of the best financial deals in modern history. Refusing them doesn’t make government smaller. It just kills children.
As vaccination rates continue to plummet under the Make America Healthy Again “personal choice” evidence-free ideology, measles has come back with a collection agency. A new Yale analysis estimates that if MMR rates drop just 1% annually over the next five years, the United States could be looking at $1.5 billion in new medical bills, public health responses, and lost productivity. That’s before you count the hospitalizations, the brain swelling, or the funerals. Vaccines are pretty much free; outbreaks? Not so much.
In just the first two months of 2026, the country has already seen more than 1,000 measles cases, almost 50% of last year’s also skyrocketing total. 94% of those infected were unvaccinated. For a disease declared eliminated in 2000, that’s “heck of a job,” RFK Jr!
Since 2019, more than two-thirds of counties and jurisdictions have reported notable drops in vaccination rates, an NBC News/Stanford University investigation found. Among states that track MMR rates, more than half their counties — 67% — fall below the level needed to stop a measles outbreak.
An alarming new report calculates the price tag for the U.S. if those rates continue to fall.
If measles vaccination rates continue to drop just 1% annually for the next five years, the cost to the U.S. could reach $1.5 billion a year, according to a new report from the Yale School of Public Health.
Vaccines are one of the best financial deals in modern history. Refusing them doesn’t make government smaller. It just kills children.