It wouldn't, and that's the root of our current problem with health care, IMHO. In any for-profit insurance company, the business model is 1) you bet the company you're going to die, get sick, or have a housefire and 2) the company bets you that you're going to live, be fine, and be careful with those matches. So the goal is that the company will minimize their risk by limiting what behaviors you may choose. No using a charcoal grill in your living room. No smoking or your life insurance rates will go much higher.
The difference between life or house insurance and health insurance is that you can, theoretically at least, live without life or house insurance. Let's forget for a moment that your bank will insist you buy homeowner's insurance if you want a mortgage loan. Health insurance is something different. Most people, at some point, will get sick or injured and require medical treatment. And in most cases, you can't accurately predict when you're going to get sick or injured. And in most cases, a serious illness or injury will cost big bucks. Furthermore, in many parts of the USA, you can't see a doctor without insurance. So if you don't have health insurance or suitcases of cash, many people in the USA can't get even basic health care.
That's a huge difference between health insurance and other types of insurance. And that's why the debate that seems to be missing in our current health care shouting match is for-profit insurance companies. I don't see how we reform any aspect of the completely out of control health care costs in this country without doing what much of the rest of the world has already done: outlawed for-profit health insurance for basic coverage. I referred to this Washington Post article by T.R. Reid in my 9/3/09 post:
The current argument over whether we should have a "public option" is little more than a meaningless distraction. To really effect change in the way Americans get access to decent health care, we should be pursuing the establishment of a universal, not-for-profit health insurance system.Foreign health insurance companies, in contrast, must accept all applicants, and they can't cancel as long as you pay your premiums. The plans are required to pay any claim submitted by a doctor or hospital (or health spa), usually within tight time limits. The big Swiss insurer Groupe Mutuel promises to pay all claims within five days. "Our customers love it," the group's chief executive told me. The corollary is that everyone is mandated to buy insurance, to give the plans an adequate pool of rate-payers.
The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.
As long as we continue the fiction that we can have a for-profit health insurance system that will act in citizen's best interests, we're doomed to continue the mess we're now in.