Mandatory health insurance

Glen Whitman reports:

1. According to an Urban Institute study, uncompensated care for the uninsured accounts for only three percent of U.S. health care costs.

2. 47 states require drivers to buy automobile insurance, yet the median percentage of uninsured drivers in these states is 12%.

3. States should eliminate required benefits from insurance policies and allow the poor to buy policies for (relatively) cheap catastrophic care.

Here is the full piece, from Business Week; this is a topic deserving of more attention.  I’m still wondering what — de facto — will be done against those poor people who are required to buy health insurance but don’t do so.

Here is Glen’s post on Joel Waldfogel, and here is Glen attacking restroom hand dryers.