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A comment on Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test. Parent comment

Re:Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test by hermannj314 on Tuesday December 28, 2021 @06:07PM (#29719429)
Health insurance is a terrible product because it is usually not insurance at all.

If you are an alcoholic with a history of OWI/DUIs and you have a pre-existing car accident and no job, no one expects you to get free car insurance paid for by the government that will fix your already damaged car and make sure you can drive again as a human right.

In Healthcare, we assume that product should exist and we demand that it be called insurance for some reason.

The alternative to health insurance is free Healthcare. It isn't insurance at all.

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Re:Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test by duckmysick on Wednesday December 29, 2021 @03:19AM (#29722968)
I believe you're arguing semantics. If we're being strict about the definition of insurance, we should also be strict about "free healthcare". There's no such thing. Somebody has to pay for it. If it's the government, they do so using money collected from their citizens. You can call it premium, tax, payment - it doesn't matter. At its core it's a system of distributing risk - which is insurance.

In my mind, the alternative to health insurance is paying market rates out of your pocket for everything. It's not a good idea and that's why most of the countries have universal health insurance coverage.

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