That’s partly because insurers do their best to make the experience as miserable as possible. Many of them offer up less-than-accurate lists of providers and participating institutions. They reserve the right to deny you coverage of a service, and you won’t know if they have until the day you need it — and maybe after the fact. Prospectuses are complex, and few of us fully understand them. Only 9 percent of Americans can properly define all four of these rather vital phrases: health plan premium, health plan deductible, out-of-pocket maximum and coinsurance, according a survey recently released by United Healthcare.

No surprise, reviewing our health insurance options doesn’t score high on the fun-o-meter. A 2016 Harris Poll discovered almost half of the employees they questioned always found choosing an insurance plan stressful. A similar number told Aflac they would rather talk to an ex or walk across hot coals than enroll in a health insurance plan. And yet another United Healthcare survey found more than a quarter of respondents would rather lose their credit card, smartphone or luggage, not to mention suffer a flat tire, than review their health insurance options during open-enrollment periods.

Plus, we have choices when we do the real kind of shopping. If we don’t like the luggage in one store, we can always head to another. But if we don’t like the health insurance options our employer selects, or the options on the local exchange — well, short of changing jobs or moving, we’re stuck. That’s hardly the definition of consumer empowerment.

Yet the term “shopping” puts the onus on the patient, not the overpriced American system of medical care. This is no exaggeration. At an election town hall last year, a woman confronted Hillary Clinton, explaining that her health insurance costs doubled to over $1,000 a month after the Affordable Care Act went into effect. Mrs. Clinton responded that she would work to keep costs down but told the woman to “keep shopping, because what you’re telling me is much higher than what I hear from other families.”

Isn’t it absurd to describe us as shoppers? When I go shopping at the mall, I get perfume samples and free chocolates. When I consider health insurance plans, I am offered no such things.