Is it healthcare or health insurance?

Insurance isn't meant to be something you use every day.  You buy coverage incase you incur a large, unexpected expenses.  It spreads the risk among millions of people, and insurers to afford paying for these accidental or catastrophic events.  Somewhere along the way health insurance switched to healthcare (eg, something you use all the time for regular occurrences).

The idea of national healthcare is getting a lot of publicity.  It's no secret that Obama wants to make it happen.  The numbers say it isn't possible:

180M Americans have private insurance

$2,700/person in average expense of private insurance

88M Americans are on Medicare or Medicaid

$6,600/person in average expense of Medicare/Medicaid

47M uninsured

These numbers point out a few things:

1.  Why would we want to add another 47M people to Medicare/Medicaid when the cost per person is more than double what private insurance costs?

2.  If income taxes are going to pay for the 47M to receive Medicare/Medicaid, then each tax paying household would have to pay an extra  $6,204 to cover the bill.

It's time healthcare becomes health insurance.  Give everyone a $500 deductible for medical care.  It'd force people to pay out of pocket for routine care.  Insurance would step in to cover accidents or illnesses that create large medical bills.  It'd bring sanity back to the cost of healthcare which is currently 15% of GDP.