Totally agree here and it's a serious shortcoming of that model, albeit one that's adressed to some extent in the discussion section. I actually think this is one of the strongest arguments in favor of a single payer system: it makes sense for the party responsible for coughing up the cash for preventative services to also be in a position to see the "return on investment" for that expenditure, which doesn't really happen with private insurance as it currently works (too much "churn").

Sorry for the late reply. I've been busy and trying to stay away. But I'm back!!! Thank goodness for 4th year of medical school

Anna, it would be great if everyone taught their children a sense of personal responsibility like you and I do. Your son is certainly doing a great job taking care of himself. But what if he had a pre-existing condition? He wouldn't have been insurable after losing his job, and then what? No healthcare when he needs it the most. I know at least two people in that situation... Very sad.

No one is ever going to learn a sense of personal responsibility if they think the government will always take care of them no matter what. There are millions of healthy young people in this country who would rather spend $100 a month on their iPhone than on health insurance (my son's cellphone is currently being held together by duct tape.) We've made sure our children have never been uninsured for even a minute all of their lives. They do need to do something about the pre-existing condition thing for folks who maintain continuous insurance, but eliminating pre-existing conditions clauses totally will just mean that healthy people will only buy insurance when they get sick.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but statement sounds like something an insurance company would say. The issue with pre-existing conditions definitely needs to be changed and what I mean by that is that insurance shouldn't be allowed to exclude people for having them. Heck, sooner or later almost everyone will eventaly have some chronic or ever present medical condition if they live long enough.

I think responsible people will buy health insurance anyway.

The problem is that we seem to have so few responsible people in this country lately. I have a friend who is a nurse at a university student health center. The students are REQUIRED to show proof of health insurance to register for classes (so the health center is not faced with the liability of dealing with an uninsured student, far from home, with a potentially serious problem). My friend says you would not believe how many students sign up for insurance, register, and then drop the insurance, even though the college offers insurance at a very reasonable cost.

College students are reasonably healthy group of people. However I think we need to consider the fact that some students are barely in college from a financial perspective, so adding something like a reasonably priced health insurance policy may not be a afforable expense.

I agree

So isn't Doctors agreeing with the insurance companies part of why this big health care mess exists in the first place?

I don't think doctors agree with insurance companies about everything.

At the last state U my son attended, student health insurance is $161 per semester ($50 deductible, $1000 out-of-pocket maximum). Considering that tuition and fees is about $5500 a semester, that is a drop in the bucket and well worth the expense. As I said before, it's way less than what they spend on their iPhones.