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What other options then a good insurance system do you have? There are basically 2 options for paying the health care system:
(1) Everybody pays his/her own expenses. This is probably what most `pure-capitalist' people would like. The problem is that most people do not have enough money for very expensive treatments. So high end health care would only be available to the rich, and the poor especially would have to do with substandard health care.
(2) Insurance. But if not everybody will be accepted they fall back to case 1 with all the problems that causes.
(3) Some other way to pay for health care where people don't have to pay all expenses themselves but the expenses will be paid from some kind of common budget. This is similar to insurance but then not run by an insurance company, but probably by the government or some semi-government or government controlled organization. This might give same savings because it cuts out the profit of the insurance companies. On the other hand it misses competition which usually lowers prices.
Of course mixes are also possible, like people having to pay there own expenses up to a certain level (probably related to their income) and the top expenses paid by the insurance company or the government.
I myself think that the second option isn't that bad, maybe with some mixture from the others.
With regard to the mutual: my bank also started as a mutual. It was founded by farmers who wanted to save their money in good times and be able to borrow in bad times or when they had to make investments without being at the whims of commercial banks. They just formed a cooperation, usually in their local communities, and later these banks worked together in a national organisation. The same model was formed in Germany. The bank now has many more customers that are not farmers (me for example). When you are a customer, you can also become a member of the bank which means you have voting rights. The bank does not have shareholders; all the profit stays with the bank and part of it is invested in the local communities (like giving money to a charity), and is decided upon by the members.
The bank is the only private bank in the world with a AAA status and it was the only one of the national banks that didn't need government help for the financial crisis. So it appears to be an effective model.
Some people say they don't want to have tp pay for other people's expenses. Do you not pay for the police and the fire brigade then? You may not see this explicitely on your bill but you still pay for it, probably through your taxes.
And finally, why is USA health care so expensive? An article I read this week noted that one of the reasons is the claim culture in the USA. Doctors are so scared about possible legal claims that they do every conceivable test, even when they think it is unnecessary. Because otherwise they might get sued later for omitting such a test. This makes it very expensive. Maybe Americans should rethink about the foundations of their society! (But so should we.)
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