I was saying that a long term, post diagnosis insurance plan would be the same as a hospital bill that you pay over time. I said that because insurance is a game of odds; you pay a fee based on the likelihood of needing a particular level of care. Once it's confirmed that you need that care, however, there are no longer any odds to play. The only number it makes sense to insure you for is the expense of the treatment, making such an insurance policy identical to a bill.

Anyway, you didn't argue with me, you just said "but when billing goes through insurance companies, people have to pre-pay and provide an SSN." All incompetence jokes aside, I'm sure the government realizes that mandating the above billing practices for hospitals would provide the same benefits as forcing people to go through insurance companies. Yet they've still said "we're proposing that you need to buy insurance." I'm just curious what the reason for that is.

Having thought about it some more, though, I guess it's not all that confusing. I was focusing too much on the big hospital bill issue (if someone can't pay the bill, why would they pay the insurance?). It makes sense for small bills, though. If I'm able to purchase insurance and choose not to, but then I need relatively cheap hospital care that requires me to purchase insurance, I'll probably go for it. More importantly, I'll probably continue to pay the insurance rather than risk the legal ramifications of defaulting.

Of course, I'm not sure how many law abiding citizens you'd find that chose not to buy insurance despite being able to. Still, whether that number is 1 or 1,000,000,000, it's better than nothing, right? Sorry for my rambling posts, but I appreciate the response.