Obviously I don't know your age or health history. But, assuming you're still fairly young (say under 40-ish) and healthy you might consider a catastrophic illness plan. You're covered if something really bad happens but you pay out of pocket for normal things...checkups, etc...

The wife is a nurse now and her employer provides a really good plan. But, there was a time not too long ago when we didn't have health insurance.

Around 04 or 05 wife was in nursing school and I ran my own business. We didn't have health insurance for about 15 months or so.

She called me at work one day and said she had a severe nose bleed. Turns out it was really bad and required a trip to the local clinic in an attempt to get it stopped. They worked on her for over 2 1/2 hours with no luck. The doctor said she needed to see a specialist and might need surgery. He referred us to an ENT in Greenwood Village.

Now, I had grabbed all the cash I could round up...about $850. It was pretty much every dime we had to our names at the time. The clinic visit cost almost $300 for the nearly 3 hours of work on her. I didn't think that was unreasonable. But when I heard "specialist" and "Greenwood Village", I knew that was gonna be a real problem. Especially for an emergency visit.

We got there and during check-in made it clear we were paying cash. The doc took her into an exam room, had one nurse assistant. He looked things over and said it could be handled easily but would technically require surgery...cauterization of the offending blood vessels. A little bit of prep and in less than 10 minutes total we were at the desk to pay the bill.

The receptionist said the total due was $48. I said there must be a mistake and asked if she was sure. She asked if we were paying cash and I said we were. $48. My jaw just about hit the floor. She told us because we were paying cash the procedure could be done at a reasonable cost. But if they had to take the time to file with insurance it would've cost several hundred dollars.

For about a year after that we paid for the routine stuff and saved thousands over what we would've paid in monthly insurance premiums.

So, the point is, it may be something to consider. Saving a few hundred bucks each month into a medical savings account (or some other way) and pay for the routine stuff with the catastrophic plan in case things go wrong.