My succinct solution, with thanks to Strunk & White

Diogenes

Diogenes

Nemo me impune lacessit
Contributor
Barack Obama broke American healthcare.

Obamacare premiums now average $27,000 per family. Deductibles run $6,000–$12,000.

Taxpayers subsidize this failing system with $700–$800 billion a year—mostly to prop up the same insurance companies Democrats claim to hate.

Repeal it. Replace it with nothing.

Your body, your choice? Most chronic illness stems from lifestyle. Not my problem.

The poor? Only 13 % of the world’s 8.2 billion people live in countries that provide them free comprehensive care. The other 87 % survive without it. They always have, through savings, family, or charity. That system worked in America, too, until wage controls in WWII birthed employer insurance and government stepped in to “fix” it.

America now owes $38 trillion.

End Obamacare before it ends America.


Better, @Freddy Figbottom?
 
Last edited:
Diogenes said:
Barack Obama broke American healthcare.

Obamacare premiums now average $27,000 per family. Deductibles run $6,000–$12,000.

Taxpayers subsidize this failing system with $700–$800 billion a year—mostly to prop up the same insurance companies Democrats claim to hate.

Repeal it. Replace it with nothing.

Your body, your choice? Most chronic illness stems from lifestyle. Not my problem.

The poor? Only 13 % of the world’s 8.2 billion people live in countries that provide them free comprehensive care. The other 87 % survive without it. They always have, through savings, family, or charity. T

hat system worked in America, too, until wage controls in WWII birthed employer insurance and government stepped in to “fix” it.

America now owes $38 trillion.

End Obamacare before it ends America.


Better, @Freddy Figbottom?
Click to expand...
yes.

you're my hero.
 
A healthy person who stays healthy can easily save $100,000 to $400,000 over a 40-year adult life by skipping commercial insurance entirely and paying only fee-for-service cash prices when needed.

Here’s the math (2025 dollars, average numbers):

Typical commercial plan cost
  • Age 25–34: $450/mo → $5,400/yr
  • Age 35–54: $650/mo → $7,800/yr
  • Age 55–64: $1,100/mo → $13,200/yr
  • Total premiums paid, 25–64, single person, non-smoker: ≈ $350,000 lifetime (and rising 6 %/yr).
Actual cash medical spending for a healthy adult who goes uninsured (KFF + MEPS data on the 50th percentile median healthy uninsured adult):
  • Doctor visits, labs, generics, occasional ER trip for a broken wrist, etc.
    → ≈ $750 per year average, ages 19–64.
@Life is Golden
 
Do that for 40 years: ≈ $30,000 total.

Catastrophic safety valve?

Buy a bare-bones legal ACA plan only in the year you get sick (guaranteed issue, no preexisting-condition refusal).
  • One year of cancer / transplant / trauma: pay $9,200 out-of-pocket max + 11 months of premiums ≈ $10 k premium = $19 k total.
  • Then drop it and go back to cash for services..
Net savings scenarios
  1. Stay healthy forever → pocket $320,000
  2. One cancer at age 48 → still pocket ≈ $300,000
  3. Two big events (stroke + heart bypass) → still ahead ≈ $250,000
How cash prices stay so low
  • Surgery centers quote cash LASIK $1,800/eye, colonoscopy $1,200, MRI $450.
  • GoodRx generics: $4–$20/month for almost anything.
  • Direct Primary Care docs: $75/month unlimited visits, bloodwork included.
  • Hospitals give 40–90 % “prompt-pay” discounts to cash patients who ask.
The 0.5 % who lose the bet: If you get leukemia at 28 or wreck a motorcycle at 33 and haven’t bought a policy that year, you’re suddenly facing $1.2 M fee-for-service bills with no cap.

That’s the tail risk that wipes out the gamble — but it’s literally 1 in 200 healthy adults over four decades.

Bottom line: For a disciplined, healthy, high-income person who can write a $25 k check without blinking and who re-enrolls instantly if diagnosed, going bare and paying cash is the single biggest financial arbitrage in America today.

Most people won’t do it because they fear that 0.5 % tail — but the math is brutal and unambiguous: insurance is a massive money-loser for anyone who doesn’t get expensively sick.


@Life is Golden
 
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