Michael Hiltzik: Government can't order insurers to cover the coronavirus for free. Here's why
The health insurance industry, several states and the federal government have been falling over themselves to assure Americans that they should have no fear about getting tested for the novel coronavirus - tests will be administered for free, they say, without deductibles or co-pays.
Problem solved, right?
Well, not really.
The assurances made by insurers such as Cigna and Aetna, states including Washington, New York and California, and the Trump administration's coronavirus task force are "more limited in scope than they appear," observes Nicholas Bagley, a health law expert at the University of Michigan. They offer no guarantees at all to the estimated 100 million Americans who receive
