[CamperBob2]

Insurance is a pretty stupid model for health-care financing, in any case. It's not "insurance" if you know that everybody will eventually need to file a claim.

But that's one of those inconvenient truths that American politics refuses to confront.

[ghshephard]

I won't disagree (coming from Canada) that the american "For Profit Medical Insurance" system is pretty cold ("You're poor? You get the cheapest possible health care that keeps you out of the emergency room, which you are more likely to land in because you haven't been getting very good medical care.") - but it is insurance. Some people go fifty years without needing it. Some people make claims multiple times a year for hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical care...

[justincormack]

Indeed true. And it seems to make an extremely expensive system out of it. But it also manages to do much of the worlds medical research so there are right bits amid the wrongs.