Why most people won't shop again for health insurance

You may have noticed when you last subscribed to a magazine that the company put you on an automatic renewal plan. Instead of sending you a letter when your subscription was about to lapse and asking you to take steps to renew, most now keep your credit card on file and keep extending your subscription unless you take steps to stop it. In general, people have a bias toward the status quo — and a bit of laziness. That's why similar auto-renewal policies are showing up all over the place, in public radio memberships, say, and gym memberships (and for subscriptions to The New York Times).