I agree with you in principle, provided you have the time and resources to make the insurance company actually pay out what they're supposed to. It's been more

I agree with you in principle, provided you have the time and resources to make the insurance company actually pay out what they're supposed to. It's been more my experience that the insurance company pays most charges and then you have to dispute one or two denials to the tune of a few hundred per ED visit. Or they have accounting errors or other problems that result in you being billed past your out of pocket max or your coinsurance. And so on. It's not like it's a free market because you can't just kick them to the curb a month later like you can with car or homeowner's insurance.