reporter: the white house promising eight test kits for every american for free. roughly 180 million americans have private insurance, sending 8 kits to each person would add up to 1.4 billion kits every month. blue cross blue shield tells nbc news this is not an easy task in such a tight time line we re also concerned that this will overburden retailers who are experiencing supply issues and workforce shortages. then there is the cost. there is no such thing as a free lunch. sort of like death and taxes. when insurers spend more on health care, they turn around and reserve them reporter: that means we are likely to all pay for it maybe next year? that s right. reporter: medicare isn t paying for at home tests local americans are encouraged to go to sites. though at many, lines are agonizingly long but with omicron leveling off, some infectious disease experts think the president s testing push may not be needed much longer.
they re asking for a lot of logistical help, technical help, out at the local grocery stores, trying to spread the word about the need to get vaccinated in a place, hallie, where vaccinations here in clark county are only at about 38% fully vaccinated. we spoke exclusively with the white house testing coordinator carol johnson, who also talked about how these two strategies are going to work in tandem. you have the s.w.a.t. teams who will help with this new testing push as well, if the states want it, as well as just getting the word out helping some of these states try to tailor their messages. you have nursing homes with very low vaccination rates and officials i m talking to, hallie, says it really does feel like we re back at the beginning of the pandemic for this second wave, this fourth wave, which is really a pandemic of the unvaccinated, hallie. reporter: heidi pryzbyla,