Let me just say, as an American, I hate dealing with health insurance. The whole thing is a complicated, bloated mess that causes nothing but headaches and problems. Once health insurance was introduced, it caused prices to skyrocket because if hospitals know insurance is going to pay the majority of the cost, then of course the price of the services will naturally increase over time. So, even though health insurance is not technically mandatory, you're forced into it, which means more money out of your pocket. Insurance is a business, and like all businesses, their primary goal is to make money, not to look out for your best interests. When it's time to pay out, they don't always want to cooperate, and you have to fight for what's yours. The whole system needs to be scrapped. Insurance should be reserved for catastrophic events, not for every time you need to go to the doctor. If it was done this way, hospitals would need to compete, which would drive the cost down dramatically so that insurance wouldn't be necessary at all except for maybe something major.