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The development of top-up cover for medical costs in France is under-going a major shift towards promoting goals and values traditionally associated with public services, throughout the top-up health insurance sector. We propose to apply the term “educated market” to this collection of legal frameworks which configure the health insurance market in such a way as to instil social values and “elevate” it to a more solidarity-oriented form of mutualisation. This article is based on a bi-disciplinary – legal and economic – analysis. It analyses the construction of this educated market and the renewal of public intervention in health cover. By drawing comparisons with the United States, we will show that the “educated market” amounts to a modern resolution of the conflict between prioritising the development of the market and attempting to preserve the social aims of medical cover.