to me, an affordable health insurance plan would be between $50-$100 a month. Fat chance of that happening. And if it did, the deductible would be so high as t

to me, an affordable health insurance plan would be between $50-$100 a month. Fat chance of that happening. And if it did, the deductible would be so high as to make the plan worthless for anything short of a car-crash-emergency-type-situation. Actually, that's exactly the policy you want as a healthy 26 year old: $5,000 deductible catastrophic coverage, and nothing more. It'll cost you $86 per month from Blue Shield. Health insurance, in the sense that you see it in group policies from your employer, is not worth the cost if you're buying it yourself. It will be 15 years before you get to the point where a $50 copay and low deductible make sense. Think about it. How often are you at the doctor? Once a year? Once every 3 years? And it costs you a hundred bucks or so. That's not something you need to be insuring yourself against. The key is to keep a bit of insurance just in case you get in that car crash and need new hip joints, or if you suddenly develop bone cancer and are looking at $10k/month health care bills. Those things are crazy rare, and the policy that protects you against them is priced accordingly.