Circumstances change quickly.

I'm married, things happened, and we ended up having a baby. Due to various circumstances beyond our control. That cost $100k.

As a healthy guy in my 20's, I suffered an injury through no fault of my own that led to me needing a serious back surgery. Net cost -> $250k.

Rolling the dice on something that fundamentally life altering, and expecting society to pick up the tab for the consequences of your risk management is bullshit. It is a good illustration of why you can't treat healthcare as a market driven thing unless you're willing to drop the moral obligation to preserve human life (and expect the providers to "absorb" it).

So you had a baby due to circumstances beyond your control? And you had an injury, again through no fault of your own? And the sum of those are over $350K.

Who is responsible for your health? I'd argue that the baby is entirely on you, and $100K for a delivery is insane unless you had incredible complications.

And if the back injury wasn't your fault, you could seek redress from whom is responsible. If it's work related, then work should pay. If it's an accident, then whomever is negligent should pay.

Unfortunately, no one wants to take responsibility, and expects "society" to make an individual whole after a loss.

How do you feel about people with debilitating genetic diseases/disorders? Through no fault of their own other than being born into this world, and no health care provider wants to anything to do with them. They are guaranteed money losers, and if insurance companies didn’t have to deal with pesky regulations, they would happily find and drop these patients.

I make no judgements on your moral character, but to follow your philosophy requires a fundamental acceptance that certain human life has less intrinsic value than other human life.

I have no issue with society picking up after people who truly have catastrophic illnesses (though that's really what health insurance SHOULD be, not the way it is currently.) My issue is with people expecting society to pay for health care that's not catastrophic nor "accidental." If I choose to have a child, I should expect to pay for it. My partner and I had to have IVF, and we paid for it.

You paid for the IVF.

You likely didn’t pay for the prenatal care after the first trimester, and likely didn’t pay for the delivery beyond coinsurance.

My wife had a baby. We knew about that part.

What was out of control was a complication that nearly resulted in her death.

Those types of things happen. If you are married to someone who has a stroke, should you be sentenced to a lifetime of ramen noodles and destitution because your spouse needs care that costs $500/day.

The problem with litigation is that it takes forever. And while things are processing, you'll still be on the hook. If for example, you're the victim of a hit-and-run and the offender can't be found, you're still on the hook.

When this happens, the vultures will be circling. And this happens far too often.

I agree, there are lots of catastrophic events that can occur randomly. That's the ideal situation for real insurance (as opposed to what we have now). But statistically, most people use insurance for what amounts to either routine care, or care after they've neglected their health. And in the case of the poster I was replying to, he is basically giving up his agency and expecting society to make him whole.

Sometimes no one is at fault for an accident. Accidents aren’t always caused by negligence on someone’s part.

>If I'm a healthy individual

I don't think I know any family without a member of it having some kind of medical condition. (bad turn of phrase, but do I get the point across ?)

I think the point is while losing healthcare insurance is absolutely a big problem, it's often not an immediate problem - there's a decent chance that a typical Facebook employee doesn't currently have a pressing need for healthcare, and even if they do, there's a decent chance they'll find new employment and be covered relatively quickly.

On the other hand, being evicted from your home is going to affect everyone, and there's no avoiding the upheaval - you're forced to find new housing in a famously overpriced market at the exact moment that you just lost your job.

That sounds like a case for health insurance. Just, you know, insurance. Not an account with a healthcare company with a subscription model (close to what the U.S. has now).