"How did America end up with a healthcare system with no...

"How did America end up with a healthcare system with no medicare safety net and no public hospitals? A woefully unbalanced system. A system where if you cannot afford health insurance, you are basically rooted if you get crook. Why is there such resistance over there to introduce universal health care to look after the most vulnerable? Why?"

No idea.
I don't live there nor do I follow health care policy there.
(Frankly, what it has to do with the health care sector in Australia, and this company, in particular, escapes me.)


"As a shareholder over many years, the sustainability of regulated premium hikes in line with, and sometimes above, claims increases was always something that niggled in the back of my mind."

"Why did it niggle at you?"

Oh, that's obvious.
It stands to reason that when the cost of a service is rising at double and, at times triple, the overall rate of inflation, after a period the marginal utility falls demand for that service will naturally stall and decline.

It's an economic axiom: Nothing can increase faster than the rate of the system forever.