Perhaps a rethink needed?
I live in Australia, and travel a lot, to all sorts of countries, from the First world to the thirdest of the Third world. And what links the thirdest of the Third and the US? My absolute determination to make sure that if anything happens to me, I have the means to escape the local health care 'system' and get back safe and sound to the Australian health care system - which is not perfect, but is excellent, and thanks to universal health care, affordable.
Without going into too much detail, we have a very high quality safety net, paid for by a mandatory income levy of 1.5%, plus the ability to pay for 'gap' insurance.
If I may - and I know that there is nothing more annoying than outsiders offering advice - it seems as an outsider that there are three major things undercutting the US's ability to fix healthcare.
The first is the ever-increasing power of industries and corporations in your political system. The second is a wide-spread belief that there is no such thing as luck - good or bad - everything is down to personal effort and personal worthiness. And the third is an almost reflexive belief that the US has the best .... [insert legal, medical, prison, airline etc etc] system in the world. Nothing is more certain to block real progress than the belief that you already have the best in the world - even if it is true.
