The actual true problem is that there is a mismatch between the value the average person generates in their life, and the value of them staying alive. A handful of SOTA treatments can easily blast through a year of someone's total earnings. And this isn't even some kind of gouging or scam, anything SOTA tends to be the most expensive.
Insurance is the natural solution to this, but to be effective it requires most people to not need it while still paying into it. This is what Obamacare tried to fix by mandating insurance, but healthy/young people got sticker shock and bailed.
> Insurance is the natural solution to this, but to be effective it requires most people to not need it while still paying into it.
Yes, and you can fix it by the state covering ONLY tails - which it ALREADY essentially does, just as expensively as humanly possible.
Democrats and Republicans spend all their time arguing about whether to have sweeping changes that won't drive down costs or do nothing (which obviously won't bring down costs).
You could spend less money and get better outcomes by officially covering the tails instead of un-officially.
Instead of ~50% of young, healthy people paying a MASSIVE tax for "insurance for all" which doesn't really do what it says - you could just officially cover the tails, use the existing tax dollars, and accept that instead of ~30% of people "not having coverage" everyone would have tail coverage and ~50% of people wouldn't have "coverage".
You get a better, fairer system - that costs less overall, and that I think the American people could actually vote for.
Republicans would like it because it costs less and doesn't cover abortions or whatever they bitch about.
Democrats would like it because it officially covers everyone and prevents medically bankruptcies, and it doesn't FORCE anyone off insurance, and it would bring down private insurance costs significantly. They'd bitch that we should just do Universal Healthcare instead, but it's hard to argue it's a step in the wrong direction.
Pipe dreams don't pass. Reality does. You're never getting anything passed that massively fucks over a huge relatively popular special interest (like doctors).
You might be able to pass things that piss off unpopular powerful special interest like Health Insurance (or, previously, Fossil Fuel companies).