Credit: Getty Images.

This holiday season, families gathered around extendable tables, brought together by food, love and shared memories. Yet some families were tethered by contracts far less intimate — health insurance.

Around Thanksgiving, I was rehashing some minor family conflict with a friend of mine — a dinner where my stepfather acted boorish and disrespectful toward my mother. My friend asked why my stepfather wasn’t confronted about his behavior.

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“I didn’t want to stir the pot,” I replied, “since they were separated and we were worried he would kick her off his health insurance.”

This moment of family drama can easily be overlooked as banal in the U.S. Yet I think it’s worth examining and asking ourselves: How many of our family moments are shaped by our need for health insurance?

One think tank estimated that

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