Its not about a free lunch. Its about the govt doing its damndest to extract any and all wealth from people upon death.
No its not, the government can only go after what they spent on you during your life.. if you have 100k in assets and they spent 25k on your health care, they can only extract 25k from the estate, the remainder goes to your heirs... in most states, they don’t even come after an estate until both parties have passed, IE your wife has cancer, you are on medicaid, she dies, you live another 20 years... they won’t come for reimbursment until after you both have passed.
You are basically borrowing against your estate, if you have anything when you both are gone, to get health care today.... Why would you or anyone else expect a free lunch?