>>I'm bold enough to back off of my otherwise generally "hands-off" market philosophy and say that there should be a safety net for those who can't afford good health care (and I said "care", not "coverage").

Only the 1% can afford good healthcare if their expensive pre-existing conditions are excluded. Accepting a new job that should be cause for celebration becomes a source of anxiety or even a curse if it could trigger a plan change that triggers pre-existing exclusions. People become trapped in roles, fearful of the next re-organization that might drop them into what used to be the biggest cause of US middle class bankruptcy, the healthcare expense. US society is wealthy enough to agree collectively to do better than this. Everybody else in the first world has, and it didn't blow their healthcare budget- quite the opposite compared to US costs. You guys need to think about that.

>>I have no problem with programs, so long as someone can come up with a model for a country of roughly 323 million people, and one that won't stick it to the middle and lower-middle class working Americans.

Larger markets should expect lower costs. When even nations of only a few million people are able to fund universal care, you should reject propaganda that the US is so special that it can't. And the way the rich pay more is by taking additional healthcare cover that doesn't get them better care, just a nicer room in a private hospital while the same surgeon performs the procedure on a day that suits the patient rather than the public schedule. Snobs and people prepared to pay more for health, are well served via this.

>>Sadly, ACA does not meet either condition. It absolutely shafted the groups I've mentioned.

Whichever idiot decided it's OK not to enforce individual mandate, needs to be held up as a public enemy IMHO. They took down the ACA. It's as if you set a new speeding limit and then make it known you won't be enforcing it this year, or next year actually, in fact not at all... and then when road carnage worsens, people sorrowfully assert that speed limits have just made it worse so they should all be abolished.