Comment by ryandrake
3 hours ago
The concern isn't really about the cost of one-off procedures (which ARE ridiculous and potentially financially bankrupting in the USA), but the low burn of everyday office visits and specialists. $50 office visit here, $250 specialist visit there, $1000 in blood tests there... Without any chronic health problems, my family's out of pocket $5-10K a year or so with insurance. Without insurance (or on a crappier plan), it'd be even worse.
It really depends. I went without insurance for a couple years. I was able to bring every single price with the provider directly. As soon as I told them I wanted to pay cash in advance they had discount and other incentives.
In the end I paid less than even the inflated copay I would have had to pay with insurance. (And I had a lot of procedure and visit that year).
There is a good chance your 5-10k$ of copay would become 2-3k$ without insurance (Copay are absolutely inflated based on catalog prices that insurance negociate in the background).