If private insurance can account for your risky behavior (as the article is describing, then no. Private insurance doesn&#x27;t have this problem. And again, high deductibles mitigate it, since your risky behavior can cause you to lose 20% of your income, but still protect you from tail risk.<p><i>Why would I care that other people are having accidents or smoking?</i><p>Because you are paying for the consequences of their actions. A quick google search suggests more than 20% of the (far more than $100&#x2F;month) Americans pay is caused by gluttony alone: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.healthycommunitieshealthyfuture.org&#x2F;learn-the-facts&#x2F;economic-costs-of-obesity&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.healthycommunitieshealthyfuture.org&#x2F;learn-the-fac...</a><p>That&#x27;s about 1&#x2F;3 of what we spent on our overpriced military. And that ignores the costs inflicted by overweight but not obese people as well as various other unhealthy behaviors.<p>In a country where medical professionals have no other options and therefore take low salaries, this may be less of an issue. But in the US medicine is very expensive, so it costs us a lot.