ALL THINGS could be free, AND anything to score cheap points politically.
it should not cost that much to make a kit, the latest test in taiwan is free and only takes 15 minutes , similar to south korea’s drive thru.
i believe with time, the test kit will get cheaper.
they may have also figure the cost of analysts here too
All Americans do not need to be tested.
Yeah? Make it free and the price will suddenly go up to $2660. And then $3990. And then, say, have you ever even heard of The Law of Supply and Demand, Katie?
Maybe they can perform cancer screenings, pap smears, cholesterol screening, check heart, liver, and kidney functions, and perform abortions, all at the same time and all for free when these patients come in? After all its the underlying health conditions that are talking these people out.../s
The test costs a few dollars, only by bundling in an ER visit can they make it seem more expensive than it is.
Yo, Katie, how are the manufacturers going to be able to pay their employees if they don’t charge anything for their product?
Grandstanding publicity whore!
Nothing is ‘free’.
The technicians don’t work for free.
The reagents are not free.
The equipment, also not free.
The buildings that house the technicians, reagents and equipment, DEFINITELY not free.
etc.
What a moron she is.
What she MEANS is taxpayers will pay.
Unless she works for zero dollars and has no pension contributions or healthcare paid for by the REST of us?
What’s the protocol for treating this coronavirus vs treating the common cold, which is also a coronavirus??
Why test? Do we test for the common cold? Sometime maybe the flu, but it’s not necessary since there are no specific drugs to be taken for either. In each case, the symptoms are simply treated.
Porter destroyed Robert Redford.
Katie,
How much of your re-election campaign funds will you use to ensure the people of the district you represent get tested?
Or any other disease for that matter.
Maybe we could abolish The CDC and use that money for the tests?
Medicare is paying for it, IIRC private insurers are absorbing any copays.
Some quick, simple math: there are 300,000,000 Americans. At $1330/test means committing $400,000,000,000 ($400 Billion) to give everyone just one test. Considering that the person who is clear the first time might be sick a week later, most of those will probably want multiple tests.
By getting the government involved and pushing the free market out guarantees that there will be no price pressure or incentive to make testing cheaper and more efficient so that price will stay in the $1000 range or even increase as government procurement practices kick in. These idiots want to commit us all to spending around a TRILLION dollars just to test people.
Nope - the government will make other taxpayers pay for it; the Gimmiegrants will be first in line.
That $1330 price is introductory cost before economies of scale kick in. I would estimate that by the time competition among manufacturers and labs the price is more likely to be around $10 per test. I am speaking as a person educated as an Economist and that is just the way it works. The law of Supply and Demand will assure that happens. . . and it will happen very quickly. Demand is high, but with a high need, supply will quickly out pace that demand. What the government can do is assure that the means of making the test kits is freely available to manufacturers by guaranteeing the licensing to the inventors.
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-treatment-medical-bill-hospital-costs-2020-3
People will see the big bills and just not get tested.
There is a lot of schemes and scams to use this for their Communust aims.
Democrats seem incapable of simply trying to help the American people.
This exchange happened after we had already announced that testing would be free. She now gets “credit” for making it happen, but it was happening anyway.
This is a national health crisis, and we need people to get ttested, not run around sick infecting people because they can’t afford the test. It is in society’s interest to test, so society can pay for the testing.