I found another really interesting one when my wife needed $30k in dental surgery. We hurried up and got the American marriage so that they could use my dental

I found another really interesting one when my wife needed $30k in dental surgery. We hurried up and got the American marriage so that they could use my dental insurance only to find out that my plan has a LIFETIME LIMIT OF $1200. But what came to our rescue was good old collective bargaining! They call it a discount plan and basically the way it works is that for a small fee an insurance company will essentially draw you up a plan that counts you as a member but where the insurance company is explicitly not liable to pay for anything at all under any circumstances. The practical upshot is that you as a new Crap-Tier member of this insurance plan get the same negotiated rates as everyone else on this insurance plan, including the ones who pay through the nose. You still have to pay everything out of pocket, but to use this as an example "everything" went from $30k to $18k with the stroke of a pen and $50 in signup fees. This is one of the few things that an insurance company is doing that I think is actually great. The rates are exceedingly reasonable, the upside is amazing and because it's not technically insurance there's no pesky BS about open enrollment or you have to be married or you can only use it if your costs are above x once you've paid y and only if you've spent more than z this year but less than alpha your entire lifetime etc. Purely and simply walking into the office and going "Hey, there's ten thousand of us. Give us a fair rate and gain ten thousand customers or don't and don't."