Get involved. Support local and regional elected officials or candidates that share your views on healthcare, the progressive movement is growing rapidly in the US for this very reason.

One of the biggest problems in American politics is that everyone is caught up in the blood sport that is Federal politics while not paying attention to what's going on in lower offices. Yes, healthcare is and will always be a Federal issue, but it's never too late to get involved in politics at any level.

Why does healthcare have to be a federal issue?

It theoretically doesn't, but practically speaking, you're talking about risk pools. Those work better when they're larger.

Risk pools in other countries work pretty well, and their populations are <= that of pretty much every state in the Union.

Denmark’s population is that of Wisconsin.

The least populated state (Wyoming) would have a larger risk pool than Iceland, which seems to be doing fine.

Sure. For that matter, some bigger corporations in the US choose to run their own.

But it is just math - bigger pools have more resources over a larger population, and so are better positioned to survive shocks.

You’re not really refuting my point...by that logic the entire world should have one big shared risk pool, it’s just math!

My point is that you can have adequate risk pools at a lower administrative level (the states), while not having to deal with having to build up political will among a large, heterogenous polity.

That's because I'm not arguing with you.

It is a complex topic, and the variety of "solutions" to the problem give us a lot to chew on.

I don't personally think that's optimal - there are a number of problems US states have that nation-states don't. (Deficit financing, exclusion and latitude to make its own rules being larger ones.) Also, one cost of running "laboratories of democracy" is that some of them fail, and some of them are run incompetently or corruptly or cruelly.

But if you like the idea of state level fixes, by all means pull for that. There is no single right answer.

> Also, one cost of running "laboratories of democracy" is that some of them fail, and some of them are run incompetently or corruptly or cruelly.

That is true of nation states as well, and yet we trust them with sovereignty.

In our Union, states have to abide by a baseline set of rules per the Federal Constitution (free speech, right to a fair trial, equal protection before the law, etc). US States aren’t run by Kings and Queens, they’re democracies with checks and balances, state Constitutions, judiciaries, legislatures, and executive agencies.

Insofar as a state would be run corruptly or cruelly, it would be the will of the people of those states.

More important is that states can’t control immigration and cross-border trade, making a variety of policies infeasible or much more expensive, compared with the same implemented nationwide.

Immigration and cross-border trade is free in the EU, and yet healthcare is a member-state level issue. In India, healthcare is explicitly a state issue, not a Union issue.

At a glance, it looks like both have mandates of some sort that keep states/countries from going full-on free rider, which is what I expected.

Right, the US-equivalent would be for States to tie their welfare programs to state residency, which is totally reasonable and within the realm of possibility.

As I read the OP they get thrown in jail for not appearing in court. Isn’t that very different?

It is not very different. People don't show up for a variety of reasons, including inability[1] and plaintiff shenanigans[2].

But yes, people looking for a reason to blame the victim will use process arguments like that to ignore the reality of what is happening.

[1] We're talking about people with medical issues and no money; that can mean no car or no house or no personal mobility.

[2] As anecdata, someone I know was sued for nonpayment of a loan. Papers were served by mail and arrived the day of the hearing; postal carrier timing meant it arrived right as she would have had to appear, even if she hadn't been at work. Default judgement, and she didn't have the money to hire a lawyer to contest it. See how that works?

I was sued and the order to appear never arrived. I spoke to the judge and she said it doesn't matter. If it was sent out with USPS, it's considered delivered. They don't have to prove it was even delivered.

This article was clear that the judge required defendants to be properly served. I can't speak to everywhere, but I thought that was pretty standard practice.

You mean the judge that never even studied law?

Yes, that one, if you read the article like I did:

> He made sure no one was arrested unless they’d been reached by personal service or certified mail.

> As long as the defendant had been properly served, the judge’s answer was always yes.

I'm not trying to justify anything else, but the experience of being arrested without being properly served does not align with the article in question.

Not even registered mail?

If you dont have the money to pay bills how do you afford to get to court ?

Being poor is illegal ;)

Court is just a building in town. If you are healthy, you can just walk there.

The bigger problem in this case is that the people being sent to court probably cannot easily walk there, because they are unhealthy.

It’s effectively criminalizing illness.

This argument is preposterous.

There are so many reasons poor people find it difficult to appear in court. A huge, and very easy to imagine, issue is that poor people tend not to have time flexibility; with everyone screaming at them to pick up another job, how could they possibly appear in court as well?

Another very easy to imagine issue is getting healthcare outside of this “town” everyone seems to live in in the above argument, could make appearing in court difficult as well.

The argument that “all poor people are fat and ill” is not just lazy, but outright ridiculous.

> Court is just a building in town. If you are healthy, you can just walk there.

If you happen to live in town and that town happens to be where the State put the courthouse for that county.

Plenty of counties in this country are bigger than Rhode Island -- not just in the middle of nowhere, either.

True. I live in a county that is twice the size of Rhode Island. I work in a county that is the size of Rhode Island. And both counties are far from what you would call "rural" [1].

[1] For the record, Palm Beach County, Fl (main city: West Palm Beach) and Broward County, Fl (main city: Ft. Lauderale), respectively.

These companies use the court and no shows to give them ground to go after people, when otherwise they'd have ZERO case. It is a total abuse of the court system.

Why is your presence compelled in court?

That's how the American court system works. Someone can present information against you and, if you're not around to refute it, the judge is allowed to enter a default verdict.