Paying for health care

I liked the analogy in this article:

risk pooling won’t reduce overall spending or even individual affordability. A dinner party analogy demonstrates why. If a person can’t afford a steak, letting everyone order a steak, pooling the bill, and distributing it back to individuals doesn’t make the steak more affordable. As a society, there is no other table to which to send the bill.

What she doesn't discuss in the article is how much we spend on the last few weeks or months of life. Anyone who complains that we spend more than other countries is really complaining that we don't cut off the dying the way socialized countries do.