"Americans spent nearly $1.5 billion for a chance to hit the jackpot, which amounts to a $462 million lump sum"
Where did $1.5 billion come from in 4 days?
We can't afford our healthcare but we can gamble away $1.038 billion in four days?
We don't have an affordability problem we have a priority problem. Until we view it as such we won't have any realistic solutions.
If we eliminated $100 billion in health care spending annually where would that money go? We assume it would lesson the debt, improve education, or go to some other worthy cause. Do we have anything to support that desired outcome?
Washington has never shown any problem spending money if it was available or not.
No matter how much we fund education it gets worse every year.
It is just as likely that any savings would be spent on more foreign imported electronics, maybe houses bigger then our already largest in the world. Maybe we would smoke more or drink top shelf instead of draft. If you look at our spending as a whole we sure don't appear to be suffering from a crimped budget. If we are going to blow the money on something healthcare is better then smoking, drinking, or gambling.