There have been investigations of all sorts against them for years on various 'legal' issues of fraud and malfeasance.

I say legal because, technically, they are. If you sign a contract for a plan that says 'We can rip you off' you are agreeing to be ripped off legally. And this goes on all the time.

The problem is that contract law, which is what's being abused here, is based on consent. If you do not properly understand what you are signing, you cannot give informed consent. Well, not morally anyway. The argument, of course, is read all the fine print. The counter is that the fine print is a dozen pages long and intentionally written to be near impossible to read by lawyers.

As to Cannoli's argument - there is this: Shortly, one way or another the government is going to REQUIRE you to have health insurance in the US, complete with a fine if you do not. If it is required, that model doesn't work any more. You are not choosing a product you are being made to buy one by virtue of being alive and living legally in the US.

If they require it, they have every right to regulate it. Personally I think if they require it they should just make it a tax and be done with it. "For Profit" healthcare is just morally wrong because it's an innate conflict of interest. Providing the service costs money and the less spent the better. Therefore it is in the interest of the insurer that you do NOT get care as much as possible. In a mandated system that gets worse as you cannot even cancel your coverage. You MUST buy it, but they are still motivated to not pay out. It's dumb.

"Socialized" Health care does have its own set of problems, it's true - but one of them is not millions of people waiting to see doctors in muddy tents or going bankrupt because of getting cancer. I've spent half my life in a country with 'socialized' medicine and half in the US where I've witnessed the US insurance system working as it SHOULD work (so, a good experience rather than a bad one) when my dad got cancer and required extensive treatment for seven years before finally succumbing to it. People with money will always be able to afford better care, and that care will be available to them as there will always be those willing to provide it for cost. Nothing wrong with that. The US system is (and I speak from experience) far FAR worse than the Canadian one, despite ludicrous claims of the insurer supporters.

One of my favorites was "Well you don't see people in Detroit going to Canada for care but you see Canadians coming down here." True - as far as it goes. The reason is that the Canadian system requires residency to treat without charge. Detroit people COULD go to Canada, and get care. But they'd be billed for it no differently than they would be at home, so why would they bother? Conversely, there are Canadians who go to the US for care when they cannot get it in Canada. Sometimes, rightly. Sometimes the system fails them. Sometimes, also, they just want something that their doctor told them was unecessary and stupid but have the money to do it anyway. Most times, that doesn't work, but it doesn't mean they don't try.

Government run medicine is NOT perfect. Given the overall performance seen by someone who has experienced each system for a couple of decades, it is - at least if run like the Canadian system, the better of the two options.

Oh - for those who freak out at the terms 'Government run' or 'Socialized' I should, perhaps, remind you that all US roads are 'socialized'. So are all public schools and even the private ones are partially so (they get government subsidies). So is your civic protection service (Police), your fire protection service, most of your rapid transit (and again, what is run by a company is usually subsidized), your national defense etc. etc. All government run. All 'socialized'.

Honestly, if you trust the government to protect you, provide safe roads, educate your children etc. etc. why not trust them with your health? What's more important - reading, writing and arithmetic or being able to breathe? Yeah, it won't be perfect. But nothing is and I'd sooner trust someone who is simply looking to be sensible and efficient, even if they're not very good at it, than someone who only gets makes money if I do not receive the service I'm paying them for and who gets to decide whether or not I receive it. I know which motivation I trust more.

<shakes head>