Online dating as a ticket to health insurance
CoverTheUninsured.org
Source: Rubenstein, Wall Street Journal, 3/22/06 In the Online Dating World, Being Insured is Sexy
A Wall Street Journal article examined a trend in online dating in which having health insurance is a draw for a potential date. According to the article, “Health coverage is emerging as a hot selling point among online daters.” Those with coverage are flaunting it as “a sign to potential mates that they are serious, professional and grounded,” while those looking for it sometimes “troll for partners with blue-chip policies because they need coverage themselves.” The article includes interviews with some online daters who had been uninsured and discusses the trials they endured. The article also notes that “marriage as a means to medical insurance was a recent story line on the television show ‘Desperate Housewives.’” The show’s creator, Marc Cherry, based the episode on the experience of a friend of his who was uninsured and had cervical cancer, and married a friend in order to share his health plan.
http://covertheuninsured.org/news/index.php?NewsID=1502
Comment: By Don McCanne, M.D.
Who needs the government? Now you can become insured through the private sector solution of a convenience marriage. When you negotiate your own contribution to the arrangement, the government doesn’t have to be involved in that either. Besides, since the contract includes marriage, it is completely legal. There is no statutory requirement that love be a part of the arrangement.
Talk about keeping the government out of our lives and our health care. The world’s oldest profession can teach us a lot. But do we really want to learn more about the ways of that trade? Just because the insurers are doing it to us, does that mean that we would want to reciprocate? Of course not.
Let’s try the government. They may not do it with love… but they will see that we all have health care.