One would assume that libertarians and free marketeers would cheer the concept of boycotts, as it is one of the mechanisms that citizens are empowered with in a laissez-faire society.
I'm a supporter of single payer. But the health care market is a sterling example of the "worst of all solutions" espoused by the Democrats. Instead of simply raising everyone's taxes to pay for public services, they try to get companies to do hidden cross-subsidization, propping up money-losing individual plans with profits from group plans. And then they berate companies for pulling out of money-losing enterprises, as if providing healthcare for people who can't afford it is the job of private companies rather than the government.
He has his gallbladder out and all of a sudden he's a super risky person to insure. How do we get him in a risk pool where his premiums won't be unaffordable?
Incidentally: two members of my immediate family have the same problem he does. No history of serious illness, no current health problems, probably healthier than the median in both cases for their age cohort, but uninsurable outside the exchanges due to bogus pre-existing condition rules.
I am unconvinced that we can. Perhaps though.
2) Are you really convinced that the pre-existing rules you encountered were bogus? Are insurance companies just dumb when it comes to this sort of thing? I tend to assume, absent other evidence, that insurance companies will be profit seeking so would only turn people down if they expected to (probabilistically) lose money on the deal. Perhaps they're just not smart enough to discern differences at this level though? I don't have much experience in this area.
It's interesting to note that McCain proposed this as part of his campaign in 2004 and Obama pilloried him for it.
Basically, gotta get everyone caught up to the healthiest they can be, and afterwards there would be a lot better maintenance, which in return would mean that the companies have a chance of not needing to worry about the adverse selection.
It would probably also help to get rid of the networks and simplify the insurance end at the doctors offices to both reduce costs and get rid of some of the redunancies in addition to having some sort of care and coverage standards that spread across insurances, just so that people are able to get the care they need instead of going with not-quite-so-good-for-them alternatives because they happen to have a crappy prescription plan.
Other changes I would make would be to require all insurers to sell directly to consumers and decouple insurance from employment - much like most folks get their car insurance. In addition, I'd require insurers to use the exchanges if they want to be in the business and make it so that insurers have a national license instead of needing certified in each and every state they sell in. This would not only standardize coverage, but reduce overhead.
Unfortunately, this sort of thing requires planning on a rather large scale and fixing a lot of problems such as affordability of care. The current political climate hasn't been so keen on that sort of long-term planning nor cooporation, not to mention that the companies themselves might not be too keen on that last one either.
2.) I tend to think all pre-existing rules are bogus. Though they say they help with their risk, I'm skeptical. Most the plans I saw wanted folks to have continuous health care coverage to go around some of the rules (I've always gotten insurance through and employer when I lived in the US). Yet having coverage doesn't mean you take care of your condition. The opposite is also true. Obviously, some folks don't take care of x,y, or z because of lack of coverage as well. And things such as gall bladder surgery are more one-time events with few lasting needs after the surgery for most folks.