Yes I agree L_27 that the "bottomless pit" of rising possibilities is often a threat to a general public health care system. Sixty years ago old people (in particular) were snuffed out in a week by pneumonia and rarely spent many months in a hospital ward or lived till 90 with a frail health (on the other hand we don't have to keep up TB sanatories in the way they did back then - I hear TB is making return inroads though). Prolonged cancer therapy barely existed a few generations back, nor did core organ transplantations and heart surgery. The more that medicine learns to do, and the longer people will live, in general, the more hospitals and elderly care risk being weighed down.

But I don't think that's a good argument against at least a solid and well-stocked groundwork of public health, free and funded mainly by taxes, to make sure that people donm't have to keep a 30.000 bucks fund as a safety net for common diseases, prescription drugs or surgery (prescription drugs are not free under public health systems either, they just receive a price cut by state subvention). Whatver the textbook tells you, many hard working families can't keep a bin of fifty grand for illnesses and other costs stashed away over time.