Health "insurance" in general is a ridiculous concept. Insurance is supposed to flatten the cost of undertaking risky endeavors. Maybe there should be injury insurance for athletes, and STD insurance for sex workers. But the average human who jacks into the matrix for 18 hours/day is not taking any undue risk and should not need health insurance to get treatment for their cancer any more than they need murder insurance to pay for the investigation of their own death.<p>Capitalism is as faulty an ideology as any. Some things should not be for-profit. Healthcare is one of them.
I'm really beginning to think that one potentially good catalyst for change would be if we could get a law prohibiting companies from providing health benefits.<p>Even if companies responded by increasing monetary compensation accordingly (unlikely!), the impact of every middle and upper class American having to go out and buy crappy health insurance, and actually hand over the cash for it themselves, might change a few minds about how we organize healthcare in this country.
I'm a German that used to live in the USA for a while. I worked as an engineer in the US, with what would be considered "decent" insurance, and it was still crappy. You couldn't pay me enough to go back.