January 30, 2012 7:46AM # ‘The Dangerous Gym Membership’? By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) --- SHARE Here’s a poor, unsuccessful letter I sent to the editor of the *Washington Post*: > “[The dangerous gym membership](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-dangerous-gym-membership/2012/01/12/gIQAHZ7RtP_blog.html)” \[Jan. 12\] claims that in Medicare Advantage, “advertising a plan as the go-to health insurance source for marathoners could lure in a healthier subscriber base, disrupting the rest of the market place in the process.” Oh? > > > Does it disrupt the market for sneakers when running shops advertise themselves to marathoners? Since when does giving consumers something they want disrupt the market? That’s why markets exist. > > > What’s disrupting the market for seniors’ health insurance is *government*—in this case, Congress’ counter-productive attempt to cross-subsidize the sick via price controls that forbid carriers to consider each applicant’s risk when offering and pricing health insurance. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care), [Regulation](https://www.cato.org/regulatory-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).