Buying things "in bulk" as a country, things like roads, water treatment, fire services, police services, schools, etc. is not bailing anyone out. It is just more efficient to do things that way sometimes.
There is a problem with that...
It can be argued that taxation is just legalized thievery. We wag our finger at the mob who run a protection racket in its neighborhood but approve of the taxman taking away from a worker's hard-earned savings?
And before you whip out that "But it was voted by a majority of people.", I reply, "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner." Majority doesn't make right any more than might does. Only the individual has the moral right to spend the gains as they see fit and nobody else.
National defense and court system is only two exception I can think offhand that does necessitate taxation because of problem with "free ridership". As for the rest, be it roads, utilities, health care, etc., I say privatize it. Let them innovate new ways to make more efficient uses. In fact, handing it over to government is even worse than outright anarchy.
Buying health INSURANCE in bulk is no different than any of those other services. Note, INSURANCE not CARE. The problem with health care is that it has become too expensive for people to afford it. The reason it is too expensive is because we are purchasing it in the most inefficient way possible - individually from companies who's purpose in life is to drain profits from the health care dollar.
And I again disagree; handing it over to government is the worse thing we can inflict on citizens because they are horribly inefficient and inept at doing anything. More importantly, once it's under a committee, a legislative house, or an agency control, you can rest guaranteed that there *will* be corruption. It's just human nature. The fiasco we are in right now has been bought about by unholy alliance of Government & Big Business colluding to bilk the most out of average Joe Sixpack. (The fact that we have lobbyists is sufficient proof that the Government are quite comfy in the bed with Big Business)
Free market works not only because they force people to put up their wealth at risk in order to make money (Note that the recent bailouts is proof that the risk is absent) so everyone benefits from wealth made available for reinvesting but also because the invisible hand can't be bribed, corrupted, blackmailed, or coerced into doing something.
So, I do not think government is the answer for healthcare, for utilities, for nondefense or non-legal services. It's only a pity that we never truly had a free market and a government that actually minded its darned business for so long time (I'd venture to guess not since prior to Civil War... quite a long time).
