>>Yup....a failure and a failure :)

Come on, King Canute. ;-) Last week I asked what people thought of genetic tests that now can predict risk of future expensive illness. Surely it's civilized to get in first and preclude use of such information to increase individual premiums and/or deny coverage. That sort of behavior sounds like one of those dystopian sci fi stories of the '60s, but it would be inevitable in the good old days of the healthcare market. Having made the decision to disallow this, society needs to consider how widely it wants to share the cost of its decision with all workable examples pointing to universal coverage just as US citizens cheerfully accept for roads, police forces and schools- and Medicare, which is a larger socialized scheme than the whole health systems in many Western nations.