Want Health Insurance? Go Out And Buy It; If You Can Afford A Cell Phone, You Can Afford Insurance

Reason.tv’s Nick Gillespie knows how to get coverage to at least half of the 45 million Americans who need it. Call it the “Gillespie Plan”: If you want health insurance, go out and buy it. Click on the Reason.tv video above (from October 2008 before the election, but still relevant today).

Related, from today’s Investor’s Business Daily:

“Many Americans are uninsured by choice,” wrote Dr. David Gratzer in his book “The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care.” Gratzer cited a study of the “non-poor uninsured” from the California HealthCare Foundation. “Why the lack of insurance (among people who own homes and computers)?” Gratzer asks. “One clue is that 60% reported being in excellent health or very good health.”

The uninsured are not always the same people, and many are without coverage only for a relatively short time. Devon Herrick, senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis, notes that “Being uninsured is a transitory state, since most uninsured Americans are only without coverage for a short time.”

Bottom Line: If you can afford a cell phone or cable TV, you can afford basic health insurance. In Michigan, you can get basic health insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield starting at $47.14 per month for those 18-30 years old (about the cost of a basic cell phone plan), and starting at $168.13 per month for another plan for individuals under 65 and families (not too much more than a cable TV plan with premium channels, and about the same as two cells phones at the monthly average of $77).

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Comment by DJ Curcio

2009-06-17 18:23:36

if u have an income - try affording health insurance on $900/ month unemployment when u have rent, utilities, a modest car payment, car insurance, gasoline, a low cast cell plan while hunting for a job, and living on $10/week for food.

You really have no idea what it’s like to be long-term unemployed do you?

Get real - take a vow of poverty for a year and then write another piece of garbage like this.

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Comment by LUKE

2009-06-24 14:59:36

MANY FAST FOOD PLACES ARE HIRING. GO GET A JOB

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