My sister and I regularly have this argument. I am for PHI and she is all for the public system. The arguments are very similar to what I have read here. One point that she raises is, she can put the $$'s onto her mortgage and then draw it back if she needs something the public system won't cover (elective, etc). This means she is making the money work for her. Whereas I 'lose' the money to the insurance company and only get it back if there is something wrong with me.

My retort is simply this. If my daughter suddenly required emergency surgery, the public system will cover it. But then there is recovery and rehabilitation and future appointments/drugs/specialists etc. My PHI will cover that right now and if I have only paid in, say, $10,000 over the years, and the bills come to $20,000, the insurance company pays the rest. Then, if I have a medical problem straight after that, the insurance company will pay for that too. I'm not out of pocket.

I like to think of PHI in the same way as house insurance. And in 50 years, am I really going to look back and be disappointed that I paid all that money for PHI and was never sick enough to use it?