People are Funny

One funny thing about the whole health insurance talk is how willing people are to support an industry that is very open about it's efforts to completely get out of providing the service they are (well) paid to provide - though purely anecdotal (ie "made-up stories" if you're on the other side of the "argument"), take a run though some of the horror stories people have been sending into Andrew Sullivan over the past week. Mind-boggling. (I of course am still waiting for people to send in their AMAZING!!! experiences with their own healthcare. Hmm.)

Why are people so fanatical about keeping such an "Oh YEAH, Please Fuck Me Over!" system in place? I don't think they'd so readily accept it in other industries, would they? How much screaming in town halls would go on to defend this scenario:

"Welcome to Bank of America, how can I help you?"
"Hi. I'd like to withdraw $1000 from my savings account."
"Okay, great! Lemme type in your account number..."
"Sure."
"Ohoh."
"What?"
"Well, it looks like all you have in this account is pre-existing money."
"So?"
"So we can't give that money to you."
"Really?"
"Sorry. No can do."
"What do I hafta do to get my $1000?"
"Well, you can give me another $1000 right now so I can give $1000 to you, then pay our processing fee of $9000."
"But -"
"And then another $1000 penalty for wanting to withdraw the original $1000."
"I see."
"To be honest sir, we might just drop you from our bank altogether; you can just carry around all your money in the future and hope nothing happens to it."
(Head in hands, sobbing)

I don't think this would go over well with people. But hey. People are funny, what can you say. Hey look, it's Mickey Mouse.