The reason you have health insurance, and you don't just pay for healthcare, is because pooling together a lot of people and paying for all of them is cheaper than paying for each individually.
You've probably noticed that, the bigger the company, the better the health insurance plans. Why is that? Their risk pool is bigger.
Follow the logic. What's the biggest risk pool you can use? The entire US population. What would then provide the lowest per-capita cost? Spreading the cost across the entire US population. It's economies of scale.
Bonus: we can also eliminate much of the administrative aspect of healthcare because we are no longer coordinating thousands of separate insurance entities. You mentioned make-work - yes, we have that. Why does a hospital need 500 billing specialists? You tell me.
The reason you have health insurance, and you don't just pay for healthcare, is because pooling together a lot of people and paying for all of them is cheaper than paying for each individually.
You've probably noticed that, the bigger the company, the better the health insurance plans. Why is that? Their risk pool is bigger.
Follow the logic. What's the biggest risk pool you can use? The entire US population. What would then provide the lowest per-capita cost? Spreading the cost across the entire US population. It's economies of scale.
Bonus: we can also eliminate much of the administrative aspect of healthcare because we are no longer coordinating thousands of separate insurance entities. You mentioned make-work - yes, we have that. Why does a hospital need 500 billing specialists? You tell me.