you'll find McArdle quoting predictions of tens of thousands of preventable deaths yearly from non-insured status. That looks to me like a pretty big hazard rate, no?

No. The Oracle says there're about 50 million Americans without health insurance. The predictions you quoted refer to 18,000 or 27,000 deaths for want of insurance per year. The higher number implies only a 0.054% death rate per year, or a 3.5% death rate over 65 years (Americans over 65 automatically get insurance). This is non-negligible but hardly huge (and potentially important for all that).

Edit: and I see gwern has whupped me here.