How about this scenario: Say a self employed family paid $12,000 per year (we pay this much) for 20 years for health insurance, that is $240,000. Mr. Hippy Happy go lucky anthropologist spent those 20 years traveling the world, living it up, and becoming so much more enlightened than all of his non oikophobe ethnocentric American peers, not paying a dime for health insurance (or his student loans, but that is a completely different story to tell on another day). It turns out his happy days come to an end when he finds out his party hardy days have led him to a decayed liver and diabetes. So should Mr. Happy Hippy preexisting condition get health insurance for the same price ats the family that has been paying all along or should he have to compensate for the years he did not pay in? In the first scenario the responsible family has had to pay $240,000 more than the Happy Hippy, did not get to enjoy traveling the world, and will suffer from higher premiums as Mr. Hippy enters the insurance pool. Sounds like a pretty good deal for Mr. Hippy, not so much for the responsible family.
