I dropped medical insurance ca 7 years ago as a waste of time and money. Never looked back. If I get a dread diagnosis, I am staying home. Never the overnight the hospital. I do read intensively and have an Ivy+ technical education. I've moved to Asia. For $350 per month, I hire licensed, English speaking nurses, 12 hr a day, for a parent that was almost killed by Medicare at the hospital and nursing home. They are simply death traps to torture the ignorant. The causes are arrogant, miseducated, ignoramus doctors, who when demonstrated to be four ways wrong by corrective answers, keep digging the hole deeper, as well as "maimstream" medicine and govt regulations. Pharma ho and procedure oriented medicine WILL kill you, so personal knowledge and professional back up on tap is important. Mostly I use diet and therapeutic levels of supplements, with a few medicines that will largely come from reputable South Asia mfrs, direct. Cheap, e.g. 2-12 cents per tab vs $1-$6 each in the US *if still available* (FDA is requiring New Drug Applications on old medicines, driving many manufacturers out, creating availability gaps and new drug price monopolies). Doctor visits are $6 - $9 for 20-30 minutes, depending on GP or specialist level service. Local insurance is more like a coop admission ticket for lower prices and dirt cheap. However, our doctors may speak English better than your HMO doc. I'll remain in that 4% of americans not covered by Obamascare. I've already implemented health care reform at my house. FU 'bama.
One example of Medical Price Gouging and Denial of Service is Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatments. According to the FDA Oxygen that we need to breathe in order to survive is a drug and can only be prescribed by a doctor. All around the world HBO treatments are being used to treat traumatic brain injuries, autism, the bends etc.. Insurance companies in the US routinely deny payments for these treatments. HBO therapy requires 20 - 100 treatments in Sequest HBO chambers that are in virtually every hospital. At Roper Saint Francis they charge $2500 for a 1 hour treatment. 100 treatments in the US = $250,000. At the Mumbai Port Trust Hospital in India the same treatment in the same chamber costs $10. Doctors in the US do not practice medicine, they practice insurance procedures. The insurance companies dictate and prescribe your services and treatments.
Finally someone who gets it......American doctors have become spineless parasites working for drug companies.