If preventative medicine was prevalent no country would have to deal with this problem

Given that government agencies have been preaching the Gospel of Low-Fat/High-Carb for decades, and are only now beginning to backtrack, is it any surprise that people are misled?

It's important to remember that very, very few people have the mental strength and intelligence to question the official Pravda narrative. If you read Ron Unz's story on the subject, you'll realise that even a man of his towering intelligence was taken in by the (((media))) and the lies told by the government. It took him years to realise that he was being ripped off and lied to – and Ron Unz was a theoretical physicist with an IQ so high that it might not be measurable.

It is very hard to find the truth in a world of lies, especially when institutions that our societies depend upon, like governments, are the ones telling those lies. Do not be too harsh in condemning those who seek comfort in lies; it is not entirely their fault.

Yeah, true. The insurance industry imposes huge externalities and costs on the whole process of getting and paying for treatment. It would be far more sensible to switch to a purely high-deductible system for healthy patients, wherein they are responsible for the first (say) $2,000 of their medical costs per year, and then insurance simply covers everything else, and then concentrate on insurance pools and distributed coverage measures for those genuinely in need or with pre-existing conditions.

But that's not going to happen. The USA has already gone largely socialist in that sector of the economy. Every lesson from history that we have available teaches us that a country almost never stops its journey down the socialist road of its own free will. It takes a long period of catastrophic crises to force a course correction.

And for the USA, that course correction is coming soon, whether America is prepared or not. (Which it isn't.)

Yes. It would appear that the Republicucks have no intention or ability to repeal Obamacare, as with virtually every big-government program, ever. Once again, the business of progressives is to keep making mistakes, and the business of conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.

The town I left in Texas has a gargantuan hospital system. They are also a research and teaching hospital, so they get plenty of funding from the government. It is well known that if you have the flu, don't go to a clinic. Go to the ER. Especially if you don't have insurance. While you will likely wait all day at the ER (which defeats the purpose, Tragedy of the Commons and all) it beats the three day wait for the clinic. And since the ER cannot, by law, refuse anybody, you get treated whether you can pay or not. Uncle Sam picks up what's left of the tab. And almost guaranteed the legal status of half of the patients waiting in line is highly questionable.