Good advice in general, GfS. However, there is a small flaw in your reasoning.

So you DO take responsibility for your own health. You have never smoked, you drink in moderation (a little wine at meals from time to time because you have read from authoritative sources that it's good for you), you watch your diet carefully, you exercise every day, the whole ball of wax. You are all aglow with abundant good health.

Then, one day, you are crossing the street (in the crosswalk and with the light after having looked both ways) when some dork who's not watching his driving because he's text-messaging while steering with his knees runs the light. You're suddenly airborne, land on the guy's windshield, and the next thing you know, you wake up in the hospital in traction.

But this time, the dork is not insured! And, yes, he is driving illegally.

Or you and a group of friends go out to a fine restaurant. You eschew many of the goodies on the menu because you regard them as not particularly healthy (too fatty, too much salt, etc.) and while others are ordering steak, you order the new item on the menu:   buffalo steak. Much leaner that beefsteak, free-range, grass-fed, and not full of hormones and such. Very tasty, very healthy. Normally. But you and four other people who ate at that restaurant wind up in the emergency room with food poisoning because that particular shipment of buffalo steaks hadn't been properly refrigerated while they were being shipped.

Or the vagrant virus that you inhale without being aware of it—no way you could be aware of it—until you wind up sick as a dog and barfing your guts up three days later.

There are a lot of contingencies. And no matter HOW conscientious you are, you can never be sure when, how, or IF you might wind up in a hospital or doctor's office.

THINK!

I pay taxes and have ever since I started working while in college. I expect police protection when I need it. I expect fire protection when I need it. I expect the streets to be properly maintained. These things are paid for by my taxes. People more wealthy than I pay more than I do. People less wealthy pay less, and some, none at all. But they also need these services from time to time, just as we all do. No one can be immune from these hazards, no matter how careful they are. That's life.

Since health care is just as essential, I see no reason why it shouldn't be paid for the same way. Other countries do it that way, everyone is covered, rich and poor alike, and it works just fine, despite what the insurance companies and Fox News Service would have you believe.

Don Firth