Okay, I will make one last stab at showing why medical/health insurance is different from other forms of insurance, then, unless something really new appears, let it drop. I don't want to waste anyone's time and it was not that important to me in the first place. I have no love for any insurance provider. My attempt to understand does not imply approval. What I consider to be important and relevant, is the next 10 or so years where the engineering phase resulting from the mapping/sequencing of human genome will get into high gear. We will all be able to know more about each other than ever before and be able to manipulate the building blocks of life. This will have a major impact on all of us. Now, for the insurance stuff. If I take out boat insurance and my boat sinks, I collect for the boat (assuming my policy was written that way and I did nothing to invalidate it). The parties involved are myself and the insurance company. If I take out life insurance, when I die, my beneficiary collects from the insurance company, only because I am dead and cannot collect myself. If my car is wrecked, I collect from the insurance company (I or they may have to pay a lien holder). In the medical insurance game, I pay a premium to the insurance company. When I need to collect (ie use medical services) I go to a physician or hospital and they get paid for providing services by the insurer. I do not collect money for breaking my arm or catching the flu. It is not enough to call all insurance games the same just because the profit motive exists for all of them. That's like saying baseball and basketball are the same because they both use balls. The difference is in the existance of the third party (medical professionals), required because it is life maintenance, not a simple betting game like the other insurance games. If my boat is only damaged, I can collect the money and fix it myself or not, as I please. The same is not true of health insurance. Imagine that I break my arm, then insist that I be paid whatever it would have cost to fix it. I could decide to fix it myself or not fix it at all. Or take the money and go my choice of healer. Because of this structure, I do not accept that insurance companies need to know anything beyond the minimum about me. They know how to price it without detailed personal information. If this is not clear enough, so be it. Lastly, medical insurance is often (not always) coerced. For example, in a divorce case, especially with kids involved, one or both parents will be required to carry it. If you want to be full time student in Massachusetts, you are required to carry it (and telling me to give up my choice of being a student is still being coerced.). If you want a job in Massachusetts, you can only choose which provider you want. Not to carry it is not a choice. This may not be true in other states, but it is true in some. I used to live in Mass. cheers, bob