If there is no provision to prevent [gaming the system by waiting until one is sick to buy health insurance] then insurance industry in the US will go bankrupt. That has probably been the plan all along.
See #msg-48212730. A single government plan with automatic enrollment as in Medicare Part A would've been a better solution than what we have now, IMO.
“The efficient-market hypothesis may be the foremost piece of B.S. ever promulgated in any area of human knowledge!”