Want to see my bills? I don't shred paperwork until 3 years go by, so they're around somewhere. We were able to afford it, though it did take a good chunk of our retirement income away. And it was less in previous years.

The goal was to protect against really bad things happening that would result in hospital bills of a million or more -- and screw up our retirement completely.

(We had private insurance because both of us retired early, and the early premiums were reasonable. Also, my wife had heard that Medicare was a bad insurance to have, and didn't want to take the risk she couldn't get the care she might need.)