The other Awards Obama will will this year...

[Jester]

Right. It really is not a system, so much as it is that last stop gap between allowing people to die on the street.

And yet, an ethically necessary system, and the system of medical ethics is not something I would want to damage. Until those people have actual health coverage, the system will continue to have to pay the spillover costs of their emergency treatment - driving up prices. Rather than buying the ounce of treatment, you'll be forking over time and time again for the pound of cure.

The objective should not be to force everyone to have medical insurance. The objective should be to insure that everyone has the opportunity to be as healthy as they are capable and willing to be. People should take responsibility for their health and safety.

In a democracy, people can take responsibility for things collectively. The military is everyone's responsibility, and it works (more or less) fine. Roads work that way. So does education. Why not health care? It works well in other countries. It's not like this is untested speculation.

On a personal level, I'm looking at a plan right now that has a combination of high deductible ($5000), plus health care savings account. Money gets deducted each pay period and accumulates in the tax exempt HSA, and once you consume the deductible level in a calendar year, then the insurance plan kicks in. The funds in the HSA can still cover what the insurance does not. If you don't consume all the HSA, it just keeps growing (and portions can be invested) for that future time when you will need it.

I hope it works out for you. Being without health care coverage is a serious gamble.

No, the only way that governments who run socialized medicine control costs are by rationing care and regulating the medical establishment. I could bring down the overall amount spent on food by the same manner by rationing the type and number of calories that each person could consume in a day. You would be sustained, but have less and fewer choices.

If it were even remotely true that countries with public systems had inferior outcomes, then I'd agree with you that this is the trade off. But it's not true. People in most first world countries are not getting poor quality health care - instead, wasteful excesses are constrained, coverage is extended to everyone, and treatment is prioritized according to medical criteria, rather than capitalistic ones (IE: MRIs go to people who need MRIs, not people who can afford MRIs.) It saves money, and it does the job. The evidence is all out there.

Health care ain't like other products. Kenneth Arrow figured that out ages ago. The uncertainties are too large, the potential costs too enormous (or zero, luck of the draw), the nature of medical ethics too important to let markets work effectively. (See: entire other thread.)

-Jester