While I agree with the gist of your point, the free market approach to health care doesn't account for consumers' short-term thinking. The market doesn't operat

While I agree with the gist of your point, the free market approach to health care doesn't account for consumers' short-term thinking. The market doesn't operate well on the scale of decades, it only responds to current activity. My point is: given a population of health-conscious, long-term thinking consumers, a free market to serve their needs is likely to work out pretty well… except for potentially getting flooded by long-term promises that aren't actually held up over the long-term. But if the population isn't focused on health and is short-term focused, we'd see market failure here, and yet the population and economy overall will still face all the costs of people not choosing to get the preventative care they need and thus spreading disease or other social costs long-term.