Why Some Covid-19 Tests Are Expensive
The problem with unregulated health care prices
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Why are some Covid-19 tests so costly? In The New York Times, reporter Sarah Kliff writes about the wide variation in the price of coronavirus tests that some laboratories are charging. She writes:
“How can a simple coronavirus test cost $100 in one lab and 2,200 percent more in another? It comes back to a fundamental fact about the American health care system: The government does not regulate health care prices.”
This creates the opportunity for large disparities in prices. And while Americans are, in most cases, not personally charged for Covid-19 tests (the government set aside $1 billion to cover uninsured Americans who get tested and health plans are covering the full costs for those insured), Kliff writes that Americans will “eventually bear the costs of these expensive tests in the form of higher insurance premiums.” Here’s more:
In some cases, they are paying for additional tests, for flu and other respiratory diseases, that doctors tack onto coronavirus orders. Those charges are not exempt from co-payments and can fall into a patient’s deductible.
Read the full story below.
