[refurb]

Remember, just a few years ago, someone would be denied healthcare due to pre-existing conditions and die.

This is an open and shut issue if the only thing you're worried about is the end consumer. The gov't, on the other hand, needs to worry about the system including the insurance companies. Changing the rules so that a person can forgo health insurance until they are sick is a sure fire way to start a death spiral.

It wasn't until the law was changed to include the individual mandate was the pre-existing condition clause even viable. I'd argue the individual mandate is so weak, that we might end up with a death spiral anyways.

What's the popular saying on HN? "Don't tear down the fence until you know why it was put up in the first place."

[tehwebguy]

I’m sure the free market will find a way to provide healthcare without insurance companies, an all-but-required middleman.

[libertyEQ]

What free market are you talking about?

Until we fix the collusion between the American Hospital Association[0] and insurance companies through the National Uniform Billing Committee[1] to opaquely set pricing, there will be no free market in the healthcare industry.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Hospital_Association

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Uniform_Billing_Commi...

[tehwebguy]

I mean that if the ban on denying coverage for pre-existing conditions causes the health insurance industry to collapse I'm sure the actual health care industry will figure something out.

[MR4D]

Oddly, it already has, only it’s not for humans. Veterinarians are in a market that is considerably more free than doctors are, and insurance is not only not required, but rare by comparison.

Further, while the technology has advanced (eg cancer treatment for your dog), prices are much lower than what humans pay, and in some cases, declining.

[speedplane]

The human health insurance market is quite different than the veterinary market, for some very obvious reasons.

Namely: - Inelasticity: economic terms, human healthcare is extremely inelastic, you'll spend everything you have to save your own life. Not so much with a pet. - Poor information: Because of so many middlemen, there is very little information for human healthcare, you rarely know how much something will cost before you owe it. - Non-Fungible: doctors are not a commodity that you can trade out like cereal. There are human relationships involved, that make it difficult to compare apples to apples.

These are all factors that human healthcare lacks that are generally necessary to make for an efficient market.