alt Hacker NewsWell, then any insurance is also gambling, according to your argument. Mean return of buying insurance must be always worse than not buying, but you don't want it to happen to _you_.
PS: except for home insurance in hurricane areas, government allows insurance plans to be non-actuarial, so essentially all other taxpayers pay for destroyed homes there. Gov even promotes rebuilding destroyed homes in the same place, instead of people moving out, only exacerbating the problem. Whether it's good or bad I don't know.
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> Well, then any insurance is also gambling
It literally is. You're buying a YES token on a black swan event that pays you if that event happens. The entire American system is built on gambling, and that's my point.
If you want, and you're good at math, you can even buy such insurance from Kalshi. Hell, if you're worried about an alien attack, you can buy insurance against that on Kalshi by buying the $0.05 YES for that. If aliens attack and mess us all up, you get a payout of $1. You can insure yourself against politics, against a market crash, against war, lots of other things. See my point? Insurance IS gambling.
BTW, there are other countries where healthcare is almost free and you don't need to buy insurance.
> Well, then any insurance is also gambling, according to your argument.
That's what they are. Three big industries are net-losses to the economy by definition: banking, insurance and gambling.