I think we're pretty much of one accord on this. I'm not talking about mandates in any direction. We should leave it up to the company and/or individual. Personally, I'd much rather handle this on my own through normal market mechanisms. The problem is, the market has been distorted for literally decades because of perverse tax incentives, that it's going to be really difficult getting to that.
The only problem with the scenario that I would like to see is how do you handle pre-existing conditions. For instance, lets say you have health insurance, you have something happen to you, say a cancer diagnosis. While you are going through treatment, the insurance company goes bankrupt, out of business. What happens to people in that situation?
Another thing, lets say you have a heart attack and recover. How long is that a pre-existing condition? 5 years? 10 years? Also, if you are under that scenario (a pre-existing condition) and are insured, are you now locked into your plan forever? No matter what? Because if you go shopping for a different insurance you have a pre-existing condition and no one else wants to cover you. Not only is the insurance company stuck, but so are you.
I think the best way to solve this is the idea of states aggregating these risk pools, whereby insurance companies in order to do business in the state have to make available health care coverage to a certain amount of the people in the high risk pool.
Many people would say, well that’s their tough luck etc.. I would only say, wait until your Mom or Dad or Sister, brother or wife ends up having a pre-existing condition and gets locked into not only wrestling with a disease, but the health insurance on top of it. It’s an issue that will affect all of us one way or another. Most of the time, it’s not people who never had health insurance, get sick and then want health insurance. Many times it is responsible people that get into this situation.