Select hospitals have been chosen in New York to provide free HIV screening tests.

Emergency physician WhiteCoat talks about the repercussions about this move, including the possibility of delayed treatment. He says that resources, which are already stretched too thin, are asked to shoulder the additional burden of screening. “Patients wait for stroke care,” he bluntly says, “so that we can give a free HIV test to anyone that wants them.”

The larger question is who will pay for the testing.

Providing more free services in the ED “just further entrenches the idea in people’s minds that medical care should be free.” The addition of free HIV screening “is just another way to delay care, waste money, encourage more Joint Commission regulations, and cost patient lives.”

Indeed.