To be perfectly frank, it would be fine with me, as I'm basically paying what amounts to a tax anyway. At least it would be explicitly stated as such, instead of this 'bait-and-switch' bullshit foisted upon us here in the US. I suspect that Obama threw down the gauntlet here with the ACA knowing full well it would modified down the road.. I believe his ultimate goal was, in fact, a single-payer system managed by the government (similar to, um, every other country in the world).. but of course couldn't call it that. It's not clear what the Republicans will do, but the 'cat is already out of the bag' as they say. If it's a tax, call it that.. we pay Social Security as a tax so we have some safety net when we're older.. nobody bitches about that (and Americans can really bitch.. just watch the news)... it's like 5%. Why not a similar tax for healthcare? Furthermore, why do we even need insurance companies? They have too much power over services and do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with respect to our personal health. They're essentially payment clearing houses.. if we're going to privatize health, then we should mandate better price visibility of services and also better risk assessment of the ultimate receivers of the health care.. Currently, their risk assessment models are far too naive (blanket premiums with high deductibles).. Healthy people should pay less for their health care.. sick should go into higher risk pools and be paid out of the tax largesse managed by the government. Long ago, insurance companies began to amortize (health) risk through HMO's..when before that it was ostensibly pay-for-service through the doctors. They began to collect the money.. and then the service fees began to sky rocket (sounds like the US housing market, doesn't it?) Now the insurance companies know they have a huge target on their backs and are buying up all the hospitals and the private practices so now they own the 'last mile' of health care. Unfortunately it's a 45 year-old morass of legislation that no one (not even Google) wants any part of it. A good start is to mandate visibility into all services and let the consumers bitch and complain to the paymasters (their government, doctors, and insurance companies).. something will change. Until we know exactly how much things cost, we'll never be able to effectively optimize any of it.