Hey Sabari, thanks for your comment.

I think you are mixing probability with gambling. Probabilities can be calculated for life expectancy and for rolling a 7 with a pair of dice. Insurance and gambling are similar in that they both utilize probabilities. They are similar in that they both involve risk. Still, they are not the same.

Insurance serves to eliminate or reduce a financial loss due to the risk of a certain event. Risk is omnipresent - always there. While in force, the insurance is always there - the benefits are there 24 hours a day, 7 days per week and 365 days per year. It is incorrect to say that the insurance benefit doesn't exist because an event has not resulted in a claim.

Gambling introduces risk where there is no risk. Until you roll the dice, you have no risk of losing the $10 you bet on the come line. This is different than the risk that exists for a father who wants to have enough money to put three kids through college before he dies.

Regarding the endowment, while certainly sold by some insurance brokers and companies, I would not classify endowments as insurance, but rather an investment.

Regarding the life insurance, the benefit to the insured is not at death - the beneficiaries receive the contracted amount of insurance payment(s), while the insured doesn't receive much of anything really.

See my post on how insurance is priced. If the cost of doctors, hospitals and pharma go down, the cost of insurance goes down. Insurance is merely priced according to claims paid - which are payments to docs, hospitals and pharma. The cost of docs, hospitals and pharma is what is really out of reach. There is evidence to back up my claim. Read Maggie Mahar, "Money Driven Medicine"http://www.amazon.com/Money-Driven-Medicine-Reaso... Ms. Mahar is a fellow at The Century Foundation and a supporter of single-payer. Personally, I like capitalism better than socialism and don't wish to start with health care, regardless of whatever other countries might find it acceptable to their culture. My point regarding education was not an indictment on public education and I am surprised you are defensive about it. My analogy will prove true as we go down the road with Mr. Obama's health care reform and already is as many doctors are presently opting out of medicare in response to the new health care act. Further, and I am certain that you are aware, public education v. private education is not a zero sum game. During the period of 1945 through 1980, private education existed, as well. You may recall the genesis of the United States rise to super power status was the Manhattan Project - conducted at the private University of Chicago. And imagine how much more of a super power we might be if the marginal tax rate was far less than 90%!

Ron, your view of the role of insurance is skewed. Insurance is not an endless trough of money to pay doctors, hospitals, pharma and other providers. Insurance serves to transfer the risk of financial hardship due to a catastrophic loss of the insured.

What hides the true cost of insurance is lack of transparency of insurers along with the required assignment of insurance benefits by doctors and hospitals before they will administer care.

Regarding the common health, there really is no commonality between your health and mine. I do not have an interest in your health and you do not have an interest in my health. Other than empathy and sympathy, maybe. There is certainly no financial interest.

Conversely, we both have a common interest in the defense of our country. It is our country, not yours or mine only.