Think of it this way. What is the difference between putting money in a savings accout vs an HSA.
First it is pretax money so you get some savings there. Second no tax on growth.

I am sure you can guess which is a bigger financial gain overall.

But now think about this. You have a $1000 medical bill. Do you pay it from the hsa or you savings account. Well both are getting interest, but the HSA is probably getting a higher rate if invested in the stock market. And the HSA has tax free interest unlike the bank account. So the correct financial answer is to pay it from your savings account, and leave the money in the HSA for retirement. Thus it’s really a retirement plan. The key thing is that only people who have the extra money can afford to use it. So poorer people don’t get any benefit from it at all.

And yet they do scan everything.

They don’t have to ban imports, just control WHO can import. And as long as those companies are jnder their thumb, they can control which consumers can have what.
On the damage side. Personal purchases of components pales in comparison to commercial. So they could live with damage to the personal sector. And of course it will make a whole new way for the to extract profit via yet another middle man.

By cashout, I meant employers pay cash to people who choose not to have the insurance. It would require some rules that set mins, and for large companies say the value has to be based on the plans people who are using the insurance choose to avoid them creating a shit option just to cash out less.

HSA’s aren’t what they appear to be. They are actually retirment saving plan for those who can afford to fund them and not use them. They grow tax free, can be invested in the market, and you don’t pay any tax if you spend them on medical expenses years down the line. It is also designed to transfer cost from the employer to the employee. Some employers will put money in the hsa to soften the transfer, but many do not.

The only reason I suggest the middle step is to try and protect the numbers of medical professionals. If we just swap to universal, the gov will try to lowball everything. That will cause smart people to avoid the profession. And of course they will probably make striking illegal, so the balance of the union will be mostly gone.

So my point was if they just go straight to universal, it will end up underpaying doctors, which will lead to further shortages of doctors. So by doing it in two steps, we can hopefull preserve the doctors we have, and maybe even make it a progession people want to be in again.

But why is your ex getting insurance through her employer now bad. Neither path is going to change the current system before that happens.

I would like to point out that the two need not be connected. We could unmarry healthcare and jobs by making it a law that you could cash out your healthcare coverage. This would open the market for more competitive nealthcare administrators as the people using the insurance would be the ones choosing. I think it would also increase the popularity of paying direct for the simpler stuff and only carrying insurance for the big stuff. This I think is an important step as it would realign what medical care actually costs when you take out all the middlemen taking their cut. And then, when you do move to universal healthcare, the prices would be more accurate. Otherwise we are going to end up with nationalize anthem or united healthcare for determining what medical care you get, which will be a nightmare.

I think AI desktop apps like claude desktop will replace the web browser.