I don't think that most people understand the insurance concept. Insurance consists of pooling the risks and it works where the downside is so bad that usually the victim cannot cover the expenses by themselves. Most people given those circumstances would be willing to pay a little every year if they can be safe when something really bad happens. The pay outs however are large enough that it requires a significant pay in to keep the business afloat. In former decades there were clauses written into insurance that required you to carry the policy for x years before a claim could be made for specific things. In addition, no insurance company could afford to write a policy for a new policy holder who had, for example, cancer as an existing condition. How could insurance companies survive if someone was allowed to join suddenly just as something bad was happening after not joining when the good times rolled.
Along came Obamacare where everyone was covered by law. Well, under those conditions a trade off was made in that everyone had to take part during the good times as well. The failure of that mandate would be the death of any possibility that the insurance plan would work otherwise. It is fantastically expensive to pay for a cancer patient and doing so requires that the costs be shared by many people who do not have cancer. It doesn't matter if that cancer strikes someone old or young.
As this thread implies, you can reduce the overall costs by removing older people from the insurance plan. It seems to be a very popular idea with the young who view themselves as immortal. What do you think will happen when they turn 65, find themselves suddenly sick and without insurance. I guess we could call that the establishment of death camps. You get to a certain age and you lose all your protection.
If you think you can save enough to pay your own way after a certain age............you can't. The tables show that people who pay into insurance companies, a plan akin to a mandatory savings plan, on average do not get back what they pay in. Some do however and that's why people join insurance pools. It's a lot like buying a warranty.
For a disclaimer, I work in the Insurance industry for a company that I will not name on the internet.