encouraging competitiveness elsewhere will still bring down healthcare costs, though; you should be able to buy a plan tailored to you rather than one that has a bunch of extra junk you don't need
Encouraging competition
does drive down costs, but that's not the real issue here. Free market health insurance isn't a system that's designed to make it so that chronically ill people can afford their medication. It's a safeguard for people with jobs/money and good health to avoid risking bankruptcy over illness. There is
no market-based solution that will ensure people with pre-existing conditions can survive their diseases without financial ruin. As a society, we've got to collectively agree to sacrifice a certain amount of market efficiency and money to ensure that people do not have to suffer needlessly for things that aren't their fault.
so how would you fix it? by implementing subsidies? healthcare providers would only raise their prices then, that's what they did when Obamacare was implemented and it's what happens everywhere else subsidies are implemented
Healthcare providers do exploit subsidies but there isn't any way to avoid that when crucial medications are held by a small number of firms. This is the sacrifice of efficiency that comes with making healthcare less awful for people. A single-payer system might be better because, from the perspective of the drug companies, the consumer demand is still pretty much the same. It's just that it's being paid for by a government agency (which in turn is being paid into by US tax payers). That's outside of my understanding of economics though, and there might be similar issues. I do think that it would be worth it though.
Something to consider is the fact that having a healthy and longer-living populace is better for the economy. Less people sick means more people working. When everyone went to watch the OJ Simpson trial, the US economy lost like half a billion dollars in economic activity. Imagine what having publicly-funded healthcare would do in terms of previously-unexploited productivity.
People would also probably retire later on with the confidence that they will live longer. With the average US male living 76 years, you're really shafting yourself by retiring at 65 only to maybe live 10 more years.
do asthma and a peanut allergy from birth not count as pre-existing conditions all of a sudden?
They're not going to disqualify you from coverage because insurers will recognize the fact that, a) it's very unlikely that you're going to be frequently needing expensive medical care for your peanut allergy, and b) asthma medications aren't nearly as expensive as stuff like chemotherapy and insulin.
Your premiums are probably going to be higher than mine, but you can still receive health insurance for a price you'll be able to afford. Many people can't say that. Many people won't get offered a plan by literally any sensible insurance firm.
Poll