It seems you are trying to argue the case that health insurance is not "insurance" in the way other instruments are. I think we all get that. There are certai

It seems you are trying to argue the case that health insurance is not "insurance" in the way other instruments are. I think we all get that. There are certainly better words, but that's the word commonly used and I think most people can context switch between "insurance" for theft of your Van Gogh and "insurance" for pregnancy. I had a good conversation with my closest friend, an obstetrician, a month ago. After lots of discussion on what may happen with health care reform, he told me he thought most everyone would be best served if there were no institutions around any aspect of health care and every aspect was pay-out-of-your-pocket as it once was. He may be right, but you can't put the genie back in the bottle. The "country doctor" is a great metaphor for what was and what maybe should be, but there are numerous reason why we can't go back. Like it or not, society pays for lots of things that are not evenly shared: the roads you drive on, the schools you attend, the court systems that protect people that wind up in law suits, the meat inspectors that are paid by government funds when clearly some people don't eat meat. The list goes on. This is not the root of the problem. Public compromise is part of the grand beauty of living in a diverse ecosystem. I agree health care is far too complex and there should be more simple and competitive options. All I can say is if you want that, you probably need to spend more time being a part of ensuring for a larger pool of honest people that work in government. What we will get out of this new health care bill (if it does pass) will look like your typical big piece of congressional sausage. Your tired of congressional sausage? All I can recommend is to spend more effort getting honest brokers into Congress.