[lexicalscope]

It's interesting to see different people have such different experiences. For me, my wife and I both have chronic health issues, in her case more serious ones, and so HDHP makes no sense for us. I can see how for people without those issues it can make a lot of sense if you use your insurance less for chronic treatment and more for preventative care and, as you said, a safety net. On the plus side, you can generally switch from HDHP to a low deductible plan at the next plan year start date should your situation change (as ours did).

[hamburglar]

Yeah, that makes sense. The way it works out for me, even a year with astronomical healthcare costs is only going to cost me a couple thousand more because of the HDHP, and I saved nearly $8k last year due to the extremely low premiums, even after considering the out-of-pocket healthcare costs for my whole family. The way I look at it, that $8k has already paid for 2-3 hypothetical worst-case years sometime in the future.