Cross my fingers and hope I don't get sick. I do try to stay in shape(workout every day 1-1.5 hours) and eat healthy. But I just can't justify paying for health insurance at this point.
That's not a dig at you. You might be right that there's economic rationale for you to carry coverage; the risk is remote and the cost is high. That's a problem the system needs to fix.
It's actually pretty simple to get right. Everyone must be in and everyone must pay proportional to their earnings. The key is not to have minimum contributions because that's what kills you while you earn next to nothing.
And wanting to ensure everyone receives the medical care they need regardless of income is a matter of social justice.
But why should we confuse insurance with solidarity? We can use taxes/hand-outs to level people's income somewhat, and leave insurance to the market. Most sectors of insurance seem to work quite fine that way.
I wouldn't be opposed to a parallel system for people who opted out of or augmented the Govt services, that could be assessed like regular insurance, but the important thing is to have the universal basic care.
The point you make is technically true, but seems a bit bizarre.
It's like saying "if we had an financial instrument that paid for people's airline tickets, we wouldn't want to allow people to choose to join or not join - if we did that, we'd just have all the people who like to travel a lot join, and it would cost a lot! So what we really need to do is force EVERYONE to contribute, so that there are a lot of people who get no benefits who can subsidize those people who draw a lot of benefits".
Yes, you're right - unless we do that, people who draw a lot of benefits will have to pay for a lot of benefits.
...but it seems a bit morally autistic to me.
Of course, health is something that people have some amount of control over, but exactly how much is obviously a big open question. Unsurprisingly, people who are on the "winning" side of the lottery (be it health, talent, or success in things like sports and business) tend to under-estimate how much luck has to do with it, over-estimate their own contribution, and thus also over-estimate how much someone else's actions have to do with their "loss" in that lottery.
Injury only or highest-possible deductible health insurance is also a good option if you're generally healthy.
No they don't. Hospitals mark up for people paying cash. This is because they know most of the people paying cash won't pay at all. The markup for people paying cash is about 3 times that what they bill the insurance company.
If you are paying cash they will always lower their bills big time to accomodate you.
This can happen but it's arbitrary. I needed to be hospitalized without insurance and the hospital wouldn't budge on the bill. Likewise I had a roommate who had a $40,000 concussion once and the hospital wouldn't negotiate that bill, either.