[wingspar]

My experience is the opposite. Cash payer gets list price, insurance gets a much lower negotiated price. I always thought an 'insurance plan' with zero actual coverage but the negotiated prices could be ideal for self employed (with separate catastrophic policy)

[maxerickson]

That's effectively what a high deductible plan is. The ACA bronze plans are essentially high deductible catastrophic plans with some bundled services (but those services represent a small fraction of the plan cost).

The bills for simple services can still be pretty large.