My brain hurts. Does that make me ineligible?

According to this New York Times article (via this J-Walk Blog post), UnitedHealth is offering the opportunity to buy insurance for the right to buy health insurance at a later date. If you're sick now, you can't buy the insurance on insurance, but, if you're healthy now, you can buy the health insurance later, even if you're sick then. Each month, you'd pay 20% of the current premium so that you can pay 100% per month later.

The idea is that you might have health insurance now (and, of course, you're healthy now, so you don't need the insurance that you now have), but you might not have it in the future. It's sort of like paying 20% of a mortgage on a house or condo that you might need in the future if, for example, you can't make the payments on the house or condo that you're living in now.