It does seem to be backward. In my opinion, "insurance" is strictly about compensation for loss, and should absolutely be a private transaction, while preventative and emergency systems should probably be public. Healthcare coverage, despite being called "insurance," is really a system of preventative and emergency services, while California's state-run home insurance is the former. But this is what they get for trying to have price controls.

That's a great point. We'll get public insurance for houses only if the legalized bribery paid by existing insurance companies to block public ins. is less effectively applied than the money blocking public health insurance in the US. Old people don't care because they have medicare at 65+, while the rest of us slubs are going along with whatever we can find.

We get what we allow or deserve here in the US. Citizens United led to our current awful outcome.

The American ethos of "fuck you, got mine" in full effect. Middle-class Americans hate poor people but if you have a house to insure you're worth protecting.

> but if you have a house to insure you're worth protecting.

American home owners pay property taxes, any politician would not want to kill this income source off.

We have plenty of national insurance programs, including for both of those... but they're not both free and universal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Flood_Insurance_Progr...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid

I mean capital-N-capital-I, which is a specific thing in the UK.

It's a free as anything gets (in that it's kinda hard to distinguish from a tax), and universal (or was when I moved out of the UK): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Insurance