[AnthonyMouse]

> Because we have a public health care system, funded by taxes, having a large number of young men out of the work force (not paying taxes) and using the health care system effectively means my taxes, everyone's taxes, are higher.

The US healthcare system uses private insurance, implying that more use of the healthcare system raises everyone's premiums. And people without insurance then go to emergency rooms which are in turn still passing the cost onto private insurers. So voters already have the same incentive in order to avoid their premiums going up.

[thomastjeffery]

That incentive is obfuscated, though. Every insurer exists as an invisible boundary where cost is not passed to others.

On top of that, insurance is optional. There is no guarantee a person will get affordable care. That's the entire point of the system! If there were a guarantee, it would be indistinguishable from Canada (and practically every other country's) single payer healthcare system.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Every insurer exists as an invisible boundary where cost is not passed to others.

How does that affect issues like this where an increase in overall costs would reasonably be expected to apply to all insurers?

> On top of that, insurance is optional.

More than 90% of the population has health insurance, which is well over the majority required to bring about legislation.

> If there were a guarantee, it would be indistinguishable from Canada (and practically every other country's) single payer healthcare system.

That certainly isn't true. Serious problems with the US healthcare system include AMA lobbying to maintain a doctor shortage, various patent laws and FDA rules that limit competition and increase costs and a malicious lack of cost transparency. None of that would be improved merely by routing the premiums through the government.