The markets work splendidly for all things that can't be categorized as Banana Republic or catastrophe. To ward off the Banana Republic, people need enough rights provided by the government. For the most part, we have those in our country. As for catastrophe, the most sensible free market plans on issues like healthcare insurance still include single-payer for catastrophic. Basically, the markets don't account for the extremes, but they beat the pants off of everything else in every other area.