A friend's son had long term stomach pains and by the time he went to the emergency room, he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. His medical bills were way over $250k, and he still died. Had he insurance, perhaps his cancer would have been curable for a lot less. Sometimes cheaper isn't cheaper, and while nothing is wholly good or wholly bad, this seems like a worthwhile shot. Also, I know a lot of people who no longer have health insurance due to the ACA. Most of them (probably all except some of the younger ones) would qualify under the expanded program. Those people will likely form some of the next wing of chronically ill.
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The point of all "insurance" is that you pay small amounts of money into a pool of money, and if/when you need a service covered by that specific insurance pool, the money is there. The most effective and efficient insurance pool includes every single person. Some may pay in more than others, and some people may not pay at all. But the larger the insurance pool, the better for the entire society.
In a civilized society, everyone pays in, and everyone is able to receive health care. This is the starting point. Civilized people then begin negotiating what is covered. Why it is covered. When it is covered. And of course whether there is private supplemental coverage and how it should be treated.
This is, in fact, how any civilized society should function on almost every single issue. Society should function to make society better off, and then you tweak around the edges to try to make it as fair and functional as possible. But I digress.
Anyway, if health care were universal, perhaps your friend's son would have just gone and seen a doctor because he was having stomach pains, and didn't need his father or mother or caregiver to have a specific job that offered health insurance. Depending on how old your friend's son was, perhaps he was eligible for SCHIP. Perhaps they were eligible for Medicaid and just didn't know it. And, uh, just to remind everyone, the ACA was initially written and designed with all of the 50 US states getting expanded Medicaid. Which means that your friend's son may have been able to have the expanded Medicaid that was intended, had not Chief Justice John Roberts decided that mandatory Medicaid expansion would take away states' freedoms to not cover it's poorer citizens with health insurance. But, I don't know the exact circumstances of your friend and his son.
It's awful that some people get sick from genetics and happenstance and die from lack of health care, and it's equally awful and aggravating watching people intentionally destroy their bodies over decades and then decide to seek help when the condition isn't curable and is instead palliative. Personally, I just assume cover everyone with one giant health insurance pool, because not only can people who need health care "on accident" get it when they need it, but people who destroy their bodies for decades might stop by the doc every now and again...just enough to keep their acute and chronic problems in check, and much cheaper to treat.
And everyone getting preventative care when they need it would be much cheaper than what we do today. The hundreds of insurance pools that exist have infinitely less power to drive down health care costs than one health insurance pool, aka universal coverage.
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