From the article, they've already managed to negotiate the price to $490 (through, I assume, a bulk discount). Some of the testing has already been funded by t

From the article, they've already managed to negotiate the price to $490 (through, I assume, a bulk discount). Some of the testing has already been funded by the state of Detroit (albeit very late) and the federal government. At $150 per kit it would still cost the group $1.7 million to test every kit. Not to mention that a large part of the expense is projected to be the cost of getting detectives to investigate and arrest based on the results of the tests, which private industry probably can't provide.