> Healthcare is best managed as a risk pool. The bigger the pool, the cheaper to be in it. The biggest risk pool is everyone. Therefore, we should put everyone

> Healthcare is best managed as a risk pool. The bigger the pool, the cheaper to be in it. The biggest risk pool is everyone. Therefore, we should put everyone in a single pool. No, whether or not expanding the pool raises costs depends on the cost of the added population. If 80% of the population is insured, and they consume an average of $1,000 in healthcare costs each year and the uninsured population consumes $10,000/yr then expanding the risk pool to the entire population will increase the cost of insurance. We saw this happen firsthand when we mandated that insurers take on all patients at the same cost regardless of prior conditions. The population that was added to the risk pool was more expensive than average, thus driving up the cost charged per person. Universal healthcare isn't a magic wand that makes healthcare costs go down, these plans are affordable for the average person because they are paid for by taxes which are levied at different rates depending on income. I many of these countries if you charged the cost of healthcare per person on people's post-tax income (and adding back in the tax paid for healthcare) they would be paying a greater portion of their paycheck for healthcare than most Americans. The affordability isn't solved by dumping everyone into one risk pool, it's solved by changing the way healthcare is paid for. Furthermore, most universal healthcare implementations don't put everyone in the same risk pool they tax and give citizens funds to spend on healthcare but the risk pools themselves are managed by insurance companies.