But it won't. Your insurance will pay for it either way, so you are spending an hour of your time to save your insurance $75 - which won't even be given back to you in form of lower premium.
This is an assumption based on a very good insurance package. Most have out of pocket co-pays . So yes, we have to gross it up by the co-pay percent and discount it by the Annual deductible limitt, but generally the point stands. If I can save enough money I might travel away from the monopoly. Until that data is transparently available I can't optimize that scenario w/ my own choices.
> which won't even be given back to you in form of lower premium
Systemically it will eventually if insurance companies are competing with eachother for your business
Sort of; in my experience, even with a high deductible health insurance plan, the insurance company's negotiated rates are still in effect. In other words, if a visit would be billed to an uninsured person at $200, but my insurance caps it at $100, then $100 is the price accepted by the doctor's office no matter if I'm paying because I haven't reached my high deductible or insurance is paying because I have a regular, not high deductible plan.
