Like I wrote in my reply to "DanielBMarkham" above, I've actually heard people say that they aren't paying for someone else's health care, and that they simply don't care what happens to people without it. That's just a personal anecdote, but I'm sure the people who said that to me aren't the only ones out there.

I understand the real-world economics of the problem, but I think the real underlying issue is that many (not all, but a significant) number of Americans have simply become too selfish over the past 100 years or so. Those people simply aren't willing to sacrifice a little bit of their time and money to build a stronger community, because they don't see that they have anything to gain.

I also think that however this thing works out, it's going to become such a bureaucratic mess that it really won't be worth anything except to the most desperate people. The worst part is that we'll still spend the money, and it'll all get funneled away into mega-corporations without any real improvement in anyone's standard of living.