alt Hacker NewsBy "the insurance" I was referring to Medicare. I'm a working, healthy person and rarely use healthcare outside of preventative care. You could raise my Medicare taxes by hundreds monthly and still be less than what I pay for private insurance.
In a Medicare-for-all scenario, the individual price of a given procedure doesn't need to be so high, because the reimbursement is guaranteed. Right now, the "list" price of the procedure has to be high to subsidize the uninsured and Medicaid who lose money.
I'm sure there are single payer health insurance countries in which people still purchase insurance, which should inspire debate about the universal insurance cost-sharing.
Regardless, the only viable solution in the US is a single payer insurance model.
Your private insurance isn't there (ideally) to pay for your preventative care, which you can easily pay for out of pocket. It's there to pay for the low-probability but very expensive scenarios, such as cancer, major accident/injury, etc. that would otherwise bankrupt you.