[phish]

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Health insurance is only +EV for people who have something to lose. When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.

If you're poor in the US and become sick or injured, you go to an emergency room and they are forced to treat you whether you have any money or not. You run up $5000 or $50,000 in medical bills, then you declare bankruptcy later on. This ruins your credit, but if you were poor, you didn't care about your credit anyway.

And it's not as if it's really a choice, if you're poor enough you couldn't afford medical insurance anyway.

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This is really bad advice, if you're serious.

While it's true that emergency rooms have to treat and stabilize you, they do not have to make you well. For example, let's say you suffer an eye injury and go to the emergency room with no health insurance. They have to stop the bleeding and make sure that your condition is stable. But now let's say 2 months down the line, you need an operation or you'll lose the sight in that eye. Well, if you can't pay for it, you are plain out of luck. No one is obligated to pay for your surgery.

Also, even for routine medical procedures and visits, etc, being without insurance means you'll be charged from 2-10 times what someone with insurance gets charged (since the companies negotiate reduced rates for all procedures).

I'm a risk adverse person, but I would not feel comfortable without health insurance unless my bankroll was in the $10,000,000 range.