My mom does not have any medical insurance, because she is only in the country for two and a half years, and when somebody comes on a sponsored green card, they are not eligible for Medicare/Medicaid until they are in the country for five years. She is enrolled in a charity program for Chicago Northwest suburbs called Access To Care, which allows her to see an assigned family doctor and takes care of some of non-emergency needs.
As for the vaccination, the coverage varies. One year, she had to pay twenty dollars for a flue shot, next year they said they will do it for free if we come to one assigned pharmacy, located extremely inconveniently for me. So I ended up taking her to Jewel Osco and paying seventy dollars (she needs a stronger vaccine since she is 86).
This season, the Access To Care sent out a newsletter where they said among other things that they encourage everybody to take a seasonal flue shot soon, in order not to add it to corona, and that you can do it in any pharmacy for free, if you present your Access To Care card. The good part is that when mom sees any mail from Access To Care she takes it as an order :).
On Saturday, we went together to Walgreens (which is, by the way, way more friendly to uninsured people than CVS) and got our season flue shots. I had it as well, since because I won’t get to my annual checkup until a month from now anyway. The funny story was, that she got it for free and I had to pay ten bucks 🙂
Hettie's Reflections 