A miniature residence of the President of the United States, the White House, in the background … [+]
On August 24, the Biden Administration announced that, starting in September, every American household can order four COVID-19 test kits, mailed to our home “for free.” This decision offers a foretaste of government-centric health care.
This is the sixth round of “free” tests for COVID-19 offered by the administration, after the distribution of 1.8 billion such tests. So far there is no information on how much the administration paid for each test, how many tests ended up in landfills or the details of the bidding process for these giant government contracts.
The timing of the “free” tests is convenient. Two days ago, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved and granted emergency use authorization for updated COVID-19 vaccines, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) urged everyone 6 months of age and older to they took them. The fear of COVID-19 remains, as school closures have already begun.
Handing out “free” COVID-19 tests may not make sense for many people, given the fiscal irresponsibility to taxpayers, the waste of administrative resources, and societal disruptions. However, it is a typical example of government-centered health care, which, in the name of “public health,” enriches special interests, reaps political benefits, and dominates the population.
In government-centered health care, Americans have no right to know the prices the government pays for “free” health care products and services or to reject them and take the money; they just have an obligation to fund them.
Americans also don’t have the right to choose alternatives if they don’t like the ones offered by the government, which stifles innovative efforts to pursue cheaper and more patient-friendly tests. Indeed, the over-engineered “free” tests are more expensive to produce and less intuitive to use than the simple $1 versions available in European markets. What individuals want or like is irrelevant; the government has already chosen for all of us.
In such a system, the government controls the health care dollars earned by Americans and distributes them arbitrarily to areas deemed important by those in government. If spending on “free” COVID-19 tests leaves few funds available for other needs, so be it. What individual patients want does not match what the government decides.
Large, politically connected corporations fleece taxpayers through exclusive, secretive contracts, eliminate competitors through regulation, and return favors to their allies in government, perpetuating a two-class society: the ruling class of policymakers and their corporate cronies against the rest of the country. We are expected to ask no questions, pay taxes, follow orders and be eternally grateful to the ruling class, our saviors and protectors.
As long as “free” testing continues, the pandemic never ends. Why stop at COVID-19? The continued expansion of “free” healthcare offerings allows the government to constantly control the behavior of the population, perpetuating itself as an all-powerful protector while reducing the population to powerless subjects at its mercy.
The “free” tests of COVID-19 have taught us an expensive lesson: “free” offers in government-centered health care come with hefty prices for Americans. This system, designed to favor political and corporate interests, is fundamentally anti-competitive, anti-innovative, undemocratic and contrary to the self-governing American way of life.