We were just talking about this at lunch. (Disclaimer: I'm a nurse, and I work in the insurance world.)

When I did workers' compensation, the employers that had the highest risk were placed into a pool, and each workers' compensation insurer was assigned a few of them. I don't know how risk was defined... high claim costs? high number of injuries? risky job tasks? or what.

Why couldn't each state pool its uninsured and parcel them out among each of the large health insurers? They all make such whopping profits that it should be no problem for them to write a reasonable policy to offer people who wouldn't otherwise have access to coverage. Not a bare-bones policy that would leave people underinsured, nor a mega-bells and whistles policy. But a reasonable policy that doesn't leave people stranded and bankrupt.