It's never reasonable to "go bare" in the US, no matter how young and/or healthy you are. You never know when your gall bladder or appendix will decide to turn

It's never reasonable to "go bare" in the US, no matter how young and/or healthy you are. You never know when your gall bladder or appendix will decide to turn on you, or when a hernia will pop up (or pop out, as it were), or when an unexpected pregnancy will occur- to say nothing of bike accidents or other misc. injuries. One day you're feeling fine, the next day you're in the hospital with a ruptured appendix and end up with a $20,000 bill. Oh, you had a bad reaction to the anesthetic they used, and needed an extra day in the hospital? Make that a $25,000 bill. Thank you, come again! Also, besides the immediate proximal financial impact of having to deal with any of those situations while uninsured, remember the pre-existing condition trap: while you're in the hospital getting that appendix out, you'd darn well better hope that your CT scan doesn't turn up anything else of interest (cancers, hernias, etc.), as anything they discover while you're uninsured will be most likely be excluded from whatever future health coverage you might end up with. Oh, wait-- that'll probably be a moot point, since insurance companies usually refuse to sell individual policies to people with pre-existing conditions (even to otherwise-healthy young people with minor conditions). Catastrophic coverage is an absolute bare minimum to have, and, even then, make sure you really read the fine print. A lot of catastrophic or other low-premium plans have pretty major strings attached in terms of what they will and won't cover.