Open enrollment may have ended for the current period, but are you ready for your health insurance premiums to increase the next time around? That seems to be the probable outcome after the White House announced a new measure that will force insurers to pay for eight COVID-19 tests a month.

With the administration failing at its promise to start sending out tests to every home at the beginning of January, this latest move is an obvious attempt to buy a political win, but it’s your money they are using.

COVID-19 Testing Update: Today, our administration announced that beginning January 15, 2022, individuals covered by a health insurance plan who purchase an FDA-approved, over-the-counter COVID-19 diagnostic test will be able to have those tests covered by their insurance.

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 10, 2022

There are multiple issues with this, but all of them ultimately come down to the complete unnecessity of such an order. Why would anyone need eight COVID-19 tests a month? Even if you get the coronavirus, you aren’t symptomatic for that long outside of the most extreme cases, at which point, you’re going to the hospital anyway.

Further, even if someone were trying to randomly test twice a week under the guise of self-quarantining if they test positive, that still makes no sense. Asymptomatic people either don’t spread the virus at all or do so at an extremely low rate based on the information we currently have. In the end, all testing should come down to one factor: Is a person symptomatic? If they aren’t, it’s incredibly wasteful to be randomly testing.

What this boils down to, aside from Biden trying to “do something” to bring up his cratering approval ratings, is a giveaway to far-left, government-created hypochondriacs who feel like they need to test every time they come into contact with another person. He’s trying to pacify a group of hysterics who can never be pacified while accomplishing nothing of value. There is no gain in finding out a bunch of people have asymptomatic infections. It only serves to drive a narrative of irrationality when it comes to living with the virus. You don’t randomly test for the flu for a reason.

It’s also worth mentioning that with the shortage of tests, it’s unlikely someone will be able to actually find eight tests a month, at least during the current period. Still, if the order doesn’t quickly expire, it will lead to hoarding of “free” tests throughout the year that ultimately raise the costs on insurers. That cost will then be passed onto you via next year’s premiums.

The last problem here is that there’s no end-game. What happens when there’s a seasonal spike starting in the summer through the winter, burning through different regions of the country? Are we going to encourage asymptomatic testing indefinitely? Or is this just a cynical ploy by the administration to get through the mid-terms?

The answer is that there’s probably no plan here at all. Biden is aimless, desperately throwing things at the wall, hoping something sticks enough to save his political bacon. I think most people, especially outside of blue bastions, are done with this, though. They don’t want to see their health premiums go up again so that mentally ill people in New York who lack all ability to judge risk can stock their shelves with unreliable COVID-19 rapid tests.

A real leader — which Biden is decidedly not — would make things simple: If you are sick, go to the doctor.