&gt; Let&#x27;s not think about big &quot;evil&quot; insurance companies for a moment. Say there are 10 Amish guys who want to form a risk pool to provide emergency health care for their families. They were just about to finalize the contract when one of them proposes that they take a medical exam beforehand. It transpires that one of them has lung cancer. Why would the other nine allow the poor guy to partake in their risk pooling?<p>We aren&#x27;t talking about big &quot;evil&quot; insurance companies, we are talking only about the measure of success in a capitalist economy - and from that point of view insuring the 10th guy will constitute a loss.<p>On the other hand as a society we actually <i>can</i> afford to treat the 10th guy with cancer and if that we aren&#x27;t doing so is an ethical failure not an economic one.