Yeah, when I moved to the US I was wondering why everyone called it health "insurance" since it basically works completely opposite from how "real" insurance (h

Yeah, when I moved to the US I was wondering why everyone called it health "insurance" since it basically works completely opposite from how "real" insurance (home, liability, etc) works. Maybe this is why people are hung up on it, because of the word? It's not insurance and it's never been intended to be insurance. IMHO, medical care is a basic human right, and needs to be treated as such. Whether people with "risky lifestyles" should be forced to pay something more is a separate issue. (Incidentally, smoking is a bad example, though, because lung cancer tends to kill relatively early and quickly. I've seen figures that it actually lowers the lifetime health care cost compared to decades of geriatric care.)