When it comes to insurance, healthcare does no credit to those seeking such care, by limiting the enrollment period to a specific date, and thereby all those that do not make their healthcare choice by that date are effectively frozen out of healthcare. As in anything, there are notable exceptions to the rule, and States can also make their own exceptions, however, Nevada represents the only State in the Union that actually permits their consumers to purchase insurance at any time, though their policy is that, those signing up outside the normal enrollment period, may have to go through a ninety-day waiting period, before such enrollment takes effect, obviously so as to mitigate those seeking healthcare, only because they are now sick.
When you look at auto insurance or home insurance, or most every other type of insurance, that insurance is not limited to enrollment restrictions of a calendar year, nor is it limited to a specific date that a consumer must sign up for that service, so then, the healthcare restrictions on signups are the exception to the general rule and should not be the rule. First, having a fixed enrollment period unnecessarily discriminates against those that don't pay careful attention to dates, of which there are legions of those, in addition, it discriminates against people that are procrastinators, of which these procrastinators actually want to follow the rules, but simply don't get around to it, until it's too late.
The argument for having fixed enrollment dates, seems to be based around people either not bothering to sign up for healthcare until they get sick, which could be mitigated by enrollment probation periods, as well as apparently preferring the convenience of registering everyone in the same pool for the beginning of the calendar year, but the counter argument to that is simply, by creating rules, especially rules that aren't really necessary, there are many consumers of healthcare that simply won't ever get around to signing up, because they are no longer permitted to do so.
It would be far better, then, to simply have an open enrollment period with specific rules addressing when healthcare comes into effect for people, that don't enroll in the government recommended time periods, and such enrollment could be set up with deductibles and so forth, being on a rolling 365-day period, representing a year, and not therefore being fixed to a given calendar year.
If the expressed purpose of universal healthcare is that this government wants as many people as possible to sign up for it, then it would behoove that government to have rules that accommodates those that are unable to, for whatever reason, to follow the present day guidelines which are unnecessarily too limiting in regards to an enrollment period, that closes for many people on December 15 of the previous year, for coverage that will be for the entire calendar year of the subsequent year. That type of sign up restriction isn't necessary, and there should be workarounds to accommodate those that are less diligent in following directions or conforming to rules, because the purpose of such healthcare should be to provide the most benefit for the most people, in all ways and manners, rather than to effectively lock them out.