You're missing my point: it doesn't matter whether you have one pool or many-- pooling people together is what shares the risk, and in order to do that, you nee

You're missing my point: it doesn't matter whether you have one pool or many-- pooling people together is what shares the risk, and in order to do that, you need a large number of people. That's a service that health insurers provide. The fact that health insurance in the US is tied to place of employment is a weird historical artifact, but the value the insurers provide woudl be the same if it were not the case. You may not pool your car insurance with your co-workers, but you are pooling it with somebody-- in this case, the other people who purchase insurance from the same auto insurance company as you.