[VBprogrammer]

> you can try to min/max the health insurance available to you to fit your needs.

How do you do that though? The video which started this discussion is a young healthy woman who suddenly discovered she had a brain tumour. It could happen to anyone.

Fair enough, if I have a large amount of savings I might try to reduce the monthly payment by increasing the amount of risk I'm taking. But aren't those the people who would be most likely to have their insurance as part of their benefits package and so aren't paying for it directly anyway?

[mrrsm]

Where I work I am presented with multiple insurance options at various out of pocket costs both up front as well as over the course of the year. This means I can break down previous years medical expenses as well as projected expenses for the upcoming year to find the plan that offers me the best coverage for the best price.

In my case we are offered a HSA plan that the employer ends up paying us a small amount by contributions into your HSA account. That is a high deductible plan though so you will pay for everything until you hit that deductible. We are also offered more traditional 80/20 and 90/10 plans which have a much higher monthly cost but spaces out the cost of things more as the deductible is much lower.

The HSA plan is very risky for the first year as my max out of pocket was more then I was legally allowed to contribute to my HSA. The second year I had enough savings put away where even if I ended up with a giant expensive issue I had enough put away for that max out of pocket number. This plays well into the scenario in the video. I have to protect myself going forward from the unforeseen medical issues. In my current situation that means making sure I have at least 1 years worth of my max out of pocket expenses saved up. Now I am covered even if unexpected things happen.

As a single adult with a good job it is much easier then if I had a family or was working a lower paying job. Even then you can do all the calculations but the risk factor goes up with the more people you have as the unknown portion grows. There is no good solution, that I know of, with our current healthcare system. I just try to play the game and do my best to stay healthy and prepare for the day when I am not.