Well, the state is acting as a single payer for all health care its populace needs. The money is not going from you directly to the service provider. An example of that would be you paying someone to rotate your tires. Rather, the state is providing payment to the doctor for services provided to treat your health care needs. Thus, the state is acting as an insurer whose premium is the taxes you pay. You just get a whole lot of extras for the premium you pay (like road work, disaster relief, penalizing criminality, etc.). That is a textbook example of insurance.

*Edit: for those of you who doubt what I say, I ask you to look at history to as an illustration. When the US was last trying to adopt universal care under Obama, who was it that dumped the buckets of money on advertising to water it down to a mere marketplace from Romneycare? It was the private insurance companies. What was the main reform that got adopted in that in lieu of state coverage? That the insurance companies could no longer deny people with pre-existing conditions.