But gee, Paul, thats how socialized defense works also. I'll never die at the hands of an terrorist, but I pay a ton of taxes to protect some that might. I can handle my own survival, why should I pay for yours? Can I have defense vouchers instead? At nearly $1Trillion we could actually write contracts with individual terrorists and pay them so long as they don't engage in terror and it would cost far less than the boondoggle of government managed warfare.

I'm a healthy 50-year old who doesnt even have a doctor. You might think there is some risk that I might die at the hands of a state enemy, but if you did, then surely its reasonable to think that that some healthy person might get sick.

That's why I want health insurance. I also don't want a market-based supply system where I have to outbid investment bankers for medical services if I ever do get sick.

The issue with health INSURANCE is that some percentage of healthy payers WILL get sick. Golly gee, if you knew which ones they were, you could get them to pay instead of everybody, but the concept of INSURANCE is that no-one knows precisely how health risks will be distributed until they are.

However, it should be noted there is a difference between health INSURANCE and health MAINTENANCE . I have car insurance to protect me from the rare risks of catastrophic events, not to help pay my weekly gas bill.