| Having returned recently to U.S. from overseas, I agreed to quarantine for two weeks unless and until I could produce a test that shows I'm free of coronavirus infection. Making just a few calls to local testing outposts demonstrates why the country is still thrashing around in its attempts to control the pandemic. There are free testing centers—the closest to me is a half-hour drive—where the wait is two to three hours, according to a recorded message. Community health centers perform the tests for free; processing costs are close to $200, I was told, some of which will be covered by private insurance. While I was able to get my results overnight, many people wait two or three days to find out whether they're infected. Contrast that with South Korea and Germany, where testing is free and quick. Countries that recognize the economic value of public health provide services like these precisely because it protects individuals, communities and ultimately economies. It's analogous in some ways to maintaining an army, one that fights infections and chronic illness. "But, the free market! Innovation!" Those are key to health care, as they are to defense. Yet Germany, South Korea and other countries managed to design, produce, distribute and perform tests far more quickly than the U.S. And they provide the tests without potentially prohibitive costs. The U.S. is far from being the only nation faced with testing shortcomings. And it's easy to make the argument for free universal coronavirus testing in the middle of a pandemic. After all, it's a crisis. More than a thousand people are dying each day, most of them older and sicker, but many of them young, too. Most of the deaths are potentially avoidable when a good public-health system is in place. But the same could be said about so many other diseases—cancer, diabetes, heart disease—where diagnostics and treatments are unaffordable to so many in the U.S. Americans love to keep score: We're 38th in the world in life expectancy—well behind the rest of the developed world that provides universal health care—and No. 1 in health-care costs. No surprise then that we're No. 1 in Covid deaths. How can the U.S. continue to hold its international stature if it can't even provide the testing necessary to control the pandemic?—John Lauerman | 
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