yes the insurance companies are spreading their risk. It's in obamacare that they are guaranteed payment.
They're also required to spend no less than 80% of your premiums on healthcare services instead of siphoning as much as possible off to their stockholders. Blue Shield, for one, just got smacked for failing to do so and its clients were sent refunds for the difference.
That would not have been possible prior to the PPACA.
However, spreading the risk is how all insurance works - life, home, auto, liability, and health insurance - based on the Pareto principle.
Anyone dim enough to start babbling about "money trees" probably doesn't have the Google skills to look up "Pareto principle."
And they certainly wouldn't comprehend the fact that, by its very nature, insurance involves "paying for other people."