The federal Kennedy-Kassebaum law requires insurance companies to offer coverage at reasonable prices to people who've lost their health insurance because they moved or changed jobs. However, Kennedy-Kassebaum offers no assistance to people seeking insurance for the first time and it is maddeningly vague on what is meant by reasonable prices. But the worst consumer abuses of the present HMO system are not touched by any of the proposed legislation or regulation. And with for-profit companies skimming the cream of the well population, government gets stuck with the costly cases, which then busts government's budgets, which then leads to reduced government payments and so the cycle continues. The only way to cut through this mess is, of course, to have universal health insurance.
All insurance is a kind of cross subsidy.
The young, who on average need little care, subsidize the old. The well subsidize the sick. With a universal system, there is no private insurance industry spending billions of dollars trying to target the well and avoid the sick, because everyone is in the same system. And there are no problems choosing your preferred doctor or hospital, because everyone is in the same system. There's a common theme here.