Insurance Everywhere (December 13, 2005)

Everyone is required to buy themself basic health insurance, whereas the insurance companies must accept all comers and charge them the same rates. It's a neat setup, in my opinion. It accomplishes society-wide redistribution for basic health care--i.e., healthy people paying for unfortunate unhealthy people--while keeping the prices at a sane, self-funding level and avoiding the moral hazard of having governments promise ever-more benefits without figuring out how to pay for them.

But that's only the beginning. People are also legally required to have:

• personal liability insurance ("RC insurance")
• something like renter's insurance, covering the risk of things like fire and flood.
• accident insurance--which your employer must give you, if you are employed.
• insurance against default of rent (assuming that you do not opt for the alternative of paying 3 months of deposit up front).

Lex Spoon