I never understood why healthcare should be free. Why isn't car insurance free or my $5900 a year house insurance free. About a decade or so ago we were part of the group that was lobbying the state for health care reform. The problem is actually fairly simple and it's pretty much two-fold. 1st, there's not a large enough pool of insureds. Car insurance is basically affordable because everyone is forced to have it. Yes, some break the law, but the vast majority of those driving have some sort of coverage... to cover at least the basics. Because of that, there's a large pool to draw upon when you as the insured file a claim. It's the simple n factor in actuarial fundamentals. The problem with health insurance is that too many people who do not have it, draw from the pool from people who are paying for it. If there was a basic state or federal plan that covered at least hospital/surgical costs that was either mandatory or waived if more conprehensive private coverage was in place, the entire cost structure would change. You'd then have a large pool of insureds all taking place in significantly more affordable plans. But when people like the person we just had a charity fund raiser for, who decided to forgoe paying for insurance and instead "thought they'd chance it" found out she had breast cancer, then the system fails because the costs are not distributed over the proportional sample. I know there a lot of people who cannot afford coverage, but there are a lot more who can, but choose not to because it cuts into their lifestyle. Instead of purchasing coverage, they'd rather take a vacation or buy a new tv, get new carpet, furniture... whatever. There never any guarantee implied that everyone should have equal success. We should cover our priorities first, then have our fun. People just don't want to do that anymore. Everyone thinks they're owed these days. We have a society of victims. In my opinion, liberals perpetuate that for their own benefit. They discuss how you got this bad lot in life and are always there to give you someone to blame... other than yourself, nor provide an other solution It's been a very affective strategy throughout history.
The 2nd major cause are the trial lawyers. My neighbor is one of them and freely admits to me the system is entirely broken. The cost of malpractice insurance is economically prohibitive in every sense of the word. True negligence should indeed be punished and severely, but what we have today is an emabarrassment.
Solve those to issues and healthcare as we know would change overnight. We don't need free universal healthcare. What we need are more people in society taking care of themselves and each other and putting priorities first.
