The best way would be use of fine-print, non-understandable escalator clauses that increase the hard-working couple's monthly payments by a factor of two or three. With rampant inflation, confined to core goods that officially "don't count" in Washington, such as $4.00 gasoline, $5.00 milk and $3.00 bread. With rampant if covert support of immigrant labor, legal or otherwise, who are willing to work for less, without any benefits at all, let alone health insurance, thereby increasing the risk of job loss.
We could destroy OSHA, making on-the-job causes of illness and injury more likely. We could buy legislation that benefits pharmaceutical companies while making both medicine and health insurance unaffordable. We could destroy the economy of Main Street, making job loss more likely. The list is extensive, collectively making early default all but inevitable.
That issue addressed, our biggest worry becomes the solvency of the insurance companies. That problem can best be solved by requiring substitution of a "bigger and better" insurance company with deeper pockets.
Purchasing legislation and regulations (or the lack thereof) is the preferred method.
Roughly a quarter-century ago, when I was owner of a new and small consulting engineering firm in a Midwestern state, a law was passed requiring that operators of coal strip mines reclaim the messes they made. To ensure this might actually happen, the new law required coal mine operators to post reclamation performance bonds, payable to the state. So if the operators went bankrupt, the state could call the bonds, thereby obtaining funds for the state to hire and pay remediation contractors.
I never understood at the time why the small independent strip mine operators had so little interest in hiring a consulting engineer to design mining and reclamation operations so as to minimize reclamation expense, or even to provide honest estimates of expected reclamation expenses. Until, in an unguarded moment, one small operator explained Plan B.
At the time, only $250,000 in financial assets were required for formation of an insurance company, and once formed, no limits were placed on the value of insurance written. Same for performance bonds written to the government that granted the license and regulated.
As chance would have it, a dozen or so small mine operators joined together and kicked in about $20,000 each, thereby building a kitty of $250,000. They solicited a straw man and formed their very own little insurance company. That company specialized in writing strip mine reclamation bonds, with the state as an insured party. The amounts of the bonds were based on remediation cost estimates that were provided by the operators who paid for the bonds. This insurance company was issued a license even though the owners never at any time had any intention whatsoever of paying claims they knew would be filed.
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