Why do people think someone else should pay their medical bills?
Why answer a question and then ask one that requires the same answer?
People can pay for their medical bills with taxes. It happens all over Europe.
Health is something you can influence but that you don't have total control. I prefer the world where if I am the unfortunate person at least the society will help me. Having health issues is already bad enough. I am willing to pay some of my money for that purpose. It doesn't impact my quality of life when I pay for someone else's medical bills but if I end up needing that I will benefit from it a lot. So the cost it totally worth IMO.
I don't know enough about the industry to have a really solid opinion on single payer vs not. However, I don't think that for-profit corporations is a good match for most (if not all) types of insurance. It puts too much incentive for them to screw over the policyholders and their dependents.
Spreading risk is useful for things like house fires where the odds are low and the costs are high, it fundamentally doesn’t work for annual doctors visits.
I don't think this is _overtly_ what's making premiums rise. However, if more people did this, the shared odds would be lower of people needing major, catastrophically expensive interventions later. I understand why they (myself included) don't and these things are all intertwined: they can't get time off of work, don't have anyone to watch their children, are afraid of something being found and needing to see a specialist, etc. and having costs balloon.
Without having read the paywalled article yet, I suspect that said interventions are only a small part of the equation, though, and the primary driver of costs are greed-flation, middlemen (e.g. billing), etc.
PS: Several studies have shown preventive screening in aggregate doesn’t significantly reduce total healthcare costs. It tends to uncover enough additional issues to offset the savings from treating things early.
We can afford to, and collectively it's cheaper.
If we take care of our people they're happier, healthier and more productive.
What people don’t want is their doctor saying they need something while a guy in a suit tells them they can’t have it. To make matters worse the patient pays for the guy in a suits e class.
There are basically two groups of people involved in this.
Those that have not had a loved one denied needed care by an insurance company who they pay and those that have.
If you cannot identify the twisted profit motives in the American health care system that is your problem.