AIUI the problem with individual medical insurance, in the US, is that without group bargaining and a requirement that all people must have it, there's both lit

AIUI the problem with individual medical insurance, in the US, is that without group bargaining and a requirement that all people must have it, there's both little incentive for insurance providers to compete for business, and the nasty reality that lots of people not having many expensive problems subsidize the few that do, and if you cut the long tail of people with problems that are cheaper than their premiums, you end up with exorbitant costs for the remaining people, and then a death spiral as "more healthy" people continue to opt out of rising costs, and the cost needle keeps moving up. I'd probably prefer something more like a logical inverse of that - baseline guaranteed coverage for everyone by a government agency, and then if necessary private providers can wrestle over offering various incentives to use them beyond the guaranteed coverage. (Not that I have an incredible amount of faith in most governments acting efficiently, but they almost always have a better record than for-profit agencies, and I'd prefer to avoid a government mandate of a non-government agency.) (I'm not going near the convoluted structure of compensation types because I don't think I'm informed enough.)