‘Health Status Insurance’ Provides Real Alternative to Universal Care

So screams the headline of John Cochrane's oped in today's Investor's Business Daily.  An excerpt:

Markets can provide long-term, secure health insurance while enhancing choice and competition. Given the chance, they will...

This is not pie in the sky. The market for individual health insurance is already innovating to provide better long-term insurance. Well before it was required by law, insurance companies started offering "guaranteed renewable" policies.

Once you buy in, you have the right to continue coverage even if you get sick, and your premiums do not rise if you get sick.

UnitedHealth Group recently announced a product that gives customers the right to buy medical insurance in the future, at a premium that depends only on their current health status.

For a small premium, you can protect yourself against the risk that your health premiums will escalate. This is only a small step away from full health-status insurance.

The oped is based on Cochrane's recent Cato policy analysis, "Health-Status Insurance: How Markets Can Provide Health Security."

You can also hear Cochrane and Johns Hopkins University health economist Brad Herring discussing health-status insurance at this Cato policy forum, held today.