Genuine question - what about wait times for people without insurance? Say I can't afford the insurance premiums quoted for me, and I get a hernia - what then?
Wait times are the same whether you have insurance or not. All the insurance does is reimburse for the costs of the treatment.
Let's not forget what insurance does. Insurance protects you against financial risk. The insurance doesn't provide any medical care, doctors do that. All the insurance does is limit your financial risk should you need costly treatment.
Those don't count. People who can't afford insurance premiums plus out of pocket costs for care are a myth created by the liberals.
Those people surely exist. I was one for a while. I'm still unsympathetic.
If you can't afford insurance then the solution is to work harder, improve your situation, reprioritize your fiances, and so forth. (This assumes that you want some outside help mitigating the fiancial risks, many people do not.) Being poor doesn't justify dumping your health care costs onto everyone else.
And of course, if you are genuinely poor and need medical treatment you'll still get it under our current system. The hospital may come after every last cent you have should you fail to pay them for the services they performed for you. But you'll still get your treatment.