>>>But no, it had to be the market. So you get options, and you actually pay for the guy who is trying to trick you into not reading the small print. Which you should read very carefully, because it's not your health that's getting covered, it's your diseases, which you have to pick. You need to know what you may get sick of during the year, in advance. In cars, that would be "should I insure the whole engine but not drivetrain, or just drivetrain but not wheels" and then you don't get reimbursed for the crash because your brakes were covered but ABS wasn't.
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>>In the land of the free the individual is everything. So "I'm not ill or old so why should I pay for health care I may never use".
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>1) because everyone pays
>2) because it's not much so it's the cost of not worrying even when you do get old or ill or both
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>>Maybe people should band together and form health care non profit co-ops while young and fit.
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>They did. At some point in 2003 my then employer told me they would reimburse me up to 630$/mo for my health insurance, but they can't do it themselves, because they couldn't find any of them which would operate in all eight states where they had employees (!). So I started reading, in order to make an informed decision. History first, to find out what kind of players are out there in the field. And guess what - initially, most of the health insurance was in hands of non-profits. By then, however, they were reduced to 25% of the market. Didn't finish reading, though, lost the job the next day, the employer got a friendly reminder from the bank that they aren't satisfied with the profit growth rate and that they need to cut costs immediately. Ah, the independence lost.
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>> The government obviously can't solve the problem.
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>It must not, even if it tries. The interest of insurance, health industry and pharmafia outweigh the interest of the individual (unless the individual owns shares thereof). Just look at what the original ACA bill proposed, and what it turned into in order to pass. From "everyone will have it" to "everyone pays".


Saw an interesting stat somewhere that US life expectancy is relatively low but relatively high for the "already" old. Truly the took it all generation.

From wiki on American health care

"On average, a U.S. male can be expected to live almost four fewer years than those in the top-ranked country, though notably Americans aged 75 live longer than those who reach that age in other developed nations"