Without massive employer-funded health care, most people would be more likely to pay for their routine costs directly and buy insurance for excessive costs.
"Catastrophic" health insurance--insurance which covers things massive trauma (car accidents etc) or Cancer are pretty cheap. If one has the resources to pay for "routine" health care up to and including extensive surgery (say 20 to 40k), it can be a reasonable filler. Minor surgery is relatively cheap--IIRC my hernia repair was only about 5 to 7k in 1997--this is out of the reach of the lower half of the socio-economic scale, and it made me damn glad I had health insurance, but it's hardly something that most people *couldn't* pay off if they were so inclined. -- A quote from Petro's Archives: ********************************************** "We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech." --Dr. Kathleen Dixon, Director of Women s Studies, Bowling Green State University