[eru]

Hence me saying 'on average'. In a sane country, you can use insurance to convert variable payments into average payments (plus a bit of overhead).

Or, you just self-insure for dental, if you make a reasonable amount of money or have some savings.

(It's much more feasible for dental where the realistic maximum amounts are still quite small, compared to cancer treatment or similar.)

[herbstein]

> In a sane country, you can use insurance to convert variable payments into average payments

Consider tax paid healthcare to be a public insurance plan that doesn't need to skim billion dollar profits from their "customers" then.

[eru]

Health insurers profits are a small fraction of overall healthcare spending.

In general, I'd prefer services with competition and that you can opt out of.

Having said that, Singapore's system works fairly well in practice. But it's not at all like eg the NHS.