All for one, but more for me.

Abstract

A learned friend of mine told me that health care is the next US economic bubble. He said that when the housing and dot-com bubbles burst, the first hit were those with vulnerable mortgages and speculative stocks. The collapse then rumbled through the rest of society and the world. When the healthcare bubble bursts, everyone in the country will be hit and it will not be pretty. For the past decade, polls showed that the American public feels health care needs a major overhaul. Everyone feels vulnerable. No one understands the current system. For the past 5 years, even insured Americans found their personal share of costs increasing for everything from doctor visits to drugs to emergency care. Those who have lost their health insurance are unable to purchase comparable individual or family insurance of any type.1 In a bit of disingenuous political solidarity, the CEO of the trade association that represents US health plans, sometimes referred to as the Evil Empire, recently admitted that, due to a pre-existing condition, even she might not be able to afford individual insurance in …