Lets compare healthcare to police or firefighters. Imagine if you had to first pay up front before a cop ran after a bad guy for you, or pay the firefighters before they even put on their suits and started the truck even though your house was already on fire. This would seem crazy!
Yet, its like this with healthcare in the US. All this bickering back and forth that the politicians are doing is missing the first question, does everyone matter? Its obvious not everyone matters, but they want to make it sound like they do. When you call the cops or the firefighters, they usually don't know who they are going to help. The guy shot on the corner in New York could be a homeless man or some rich broker. (of course in poor cities, its a bit different cause clearly everyone is poor) But nevertheless, for the most part, anyone in need of police or firefighting gets it because its obviously a general good for society as a whole to catch bad guys and put out fires.
So I think before any major changes to healthcare happen, they need to just put it on the table that some people don't matter and hence aren't going to be included in how healthcare gets fixed. (In some ways, I almost think it costs more money to exclude people than to offer everyone basic services.)
If the government started with the mandate that everyone will get healthcare, no matter what, industry would find a way to make it work. It would either involve higher taxes, less corruption, smaller wages for overpriced doctors, more pushback on expensive meds or supplies, etc. But you can damn well bet that if you start with a clean slate and state the fundamental factors, that each person will have access to basic healthcare, things would be different. I really do believe it would be cheaper to offer everyone free healthcare and get on with it, than spending so much time and effort trying to figure out who to leave out and how to do it.
