Matthew Yglesias on Health Insurance Externalities

Matthew Yglesias has a nice post on health insurance.

“I can’t ever let my health insurance expire, or I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get it again.” That’s what a friend remarked to me last night, not in the midst of a conversation about health care policy, but just talking about life.

three dots

I’m not personally in that particular situation, but it’s a major, major drawback of the American system. It’s absurd to live in a country where people with some medical history feel they need to live without ever having a bigger-than-COBRA-sized gap in their employment history. It’s bad for the economy, and it’s bad for society.

I suspect he’s right. I wonder how one would test that.