[RockyMcNuts]

insurance doesn't work unless it's universal. it just falls apart once either side picks and chooses. the young people don't buy it, and then they fall off their bike and they're screwed. and the insurers can't get stuck with just sick people, they have the whole pre-existing condition thing, so your kids get sick and you can't leave your job.

a sick person looking for treatment is the opposite of everything that makes a market efficient, there's no perfect information, non-coercion etc.

if people want to say, I'd rather people be sick and die and have the freedom to not pay for universal insurance or get vaccinated, that's a values choice. but it's a serious error to say that the free market will result in optimal health outcomes.

[hga]

That's more than a bit of a strawman you've constructed.

I for one am willing to admit that I'm not smart enough to construct a path to a "free market" (a phrase I've never used in this discussion till this message) system after three quarters of a century of massive government intervention.

Heck, it would require an end to "democracy", and/or a few generations of radically changed public schooling, and/or "reeducation" camps for starters. Enough of the people want "socialism", and right now we're seeing the wisdom of Menken's "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.", after the Left has captured just about every institution that matters. The very idea of free market anything in the current environment is ludicrous.

[RockyMcNuts]

no straw men in sight. that's your choice: efficiency, equality, liberty...pick how you want to trade them off. if you think liberty is the only value that matters, that's a (questionable) values choice. if you think liberty always leads to efficiency, that's a questionable (IMHO clearly wrong) analysis.