Biden’s plan for free and easy at-home COVID-19 tests may not be as simple as it sounds. ‘Like everything we do in health care in America, we make it complicated’
President Joe Biden wants to make at-home COVID-19 testing kits widely available — and free — this winter as the omicron variant emerges in a re-opening economy.
Prices for home testing kits typically range from $7 per test to $38.99 per test, according to KFF, a nonprofit that researches national health issues. Paying for these tests on a regular basis could be cost-prohibitive for many people, even if a reimbursement check is coming later. “If a consumer wanted to test regularly, even the least expensive test used twice a week would amount to $728 per year, assuming they could get tests in this quantity,” KFF reported.
“The devil is in the details. We need to understand how this is going to happen,” said Carlos del Rio, a professor of infectious diseases at Emory University School of Medicine. “Like everything we do in health care in America, we make it complicated,” said del Rio, an M.D. who’s also the executive associate dean for the Emory School of Medicine at Grady Health System.
More specifics on Biden’s plan are coming, but that may not happen until next month, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday. But when is an unvaccinated person getting an at-home test for their regular life, and when is it for workplace compliance — and potentially their cost to pay? That may be for insurance companies to determine, Dawson said.
If everyone age 11 and over tested twice a week, the country would need 2.3 billion monthly tests, KFF researchers said. If half the country tested once a week, the country would need 600 million monthly tests, the researchers said.
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