I came late to the party, on this discussion. At my prior employer, ten years ago, I paid just over $3,600. US dollars. for family medical plan that included me and my 3 children. When affordable care plan kicked in, it jumped to $6,000 and then to, $12,000 annually. I changed jobs since then and now pay about $5,500 annually for a plan that covers me, My wife, and 3 kids.
in 2007, I had my appendix removed. That was over $20,000. Thankfully, I had insurance. That same year my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her surgery and treatment was massively expensive. I stopped keeping up with it when it blew thru the $200,000 mark. We had co-pay's for visits each week. I think the max out of pocket was around $3k per year. A couple years later, and the cancer returned and before she died, it had run up over an additional $300,000 in hospital expense.
I am 52. I have always been athletic. Running and lifting weights. Spartan races, triathlons, Mud runs, martial arts, etc. in 2015 I hopped out of my pickup truck and my ACL tore and my knee caved in toward the other. The bill was approx $38,000 to rebuild my ACL. That didn't include the physical therapy that I went to for 8 months. I had insurance. ( I edited the cost of ACL after looking thru some files here at home.)
You could get an infection, clipping your toe nails and have that run up $10K in hospital costs before you could even think about it.
Insurance is the sharing of risk. There have been many years that I have paid insurance and not used the insurance at all. I wouldn't be able to sleep without health insurance for myself and my family.