For people who want to opt out of Obamacare’s over-priced, bloated policies full of features designed to take your money for things you’ll never need, Breitbart News has a great interview with Sean Parnell, author of The Self-Pay Patient.
Parnell points out that, sure, you can opt out, but then what do you do when you need care? Parnell offers at least eight ways to opt-out and save in style:
1. Join a health care-sharing ministry. They’re Obamacare-exempt organizations that share medical expenses.
2. You can purchase short-term policies, one after another. Policies of less than one year aren’t regulated by Obamacare, so you can get just the insurance you want for a much more reasonable price, one year at a time. (In the worst case, if you develop some chronic, expensive condition, you can always jump onto Obamacare’s policies when the next annual enrollment period comes around.)
3. You can buy alternative forms of insurance, such as accident policies, critical illness policies, or fixed-benefit plans.
4. Visit cash-only doctors and retail clinics for primary care–you’ll save a lot of paperwork hassle, and save a bundle from your wallet. The doctors like it too.
5. Sign up for a tele-medicine service (care given inexpensively over the phone, or an internet video connection). It’s often just the thing for ordinary illnesses and questions, without the greater expense of seeing someone in person.
6. Use and ask for generic drugs whenever possible, and be sure to shop for them.
7. For surgery, use a center that publishes prices up-front. The Surgery Center of Oklahoma and Regency Healthcare are mentioned. Also, sites like MediBid let doctors bid on your particular need, often greatly reducing your costs. And, you can always consider medical tourism: traveling to another country where care is excellent, and far less expensive than here.
8. If a hospital visit is unavoidable, use a medical bill negotiation service. Don’t simply pay whatever list price they try to gouge you with.
Parnell says that just opting out of Obamacare and taking a few simple, free-market steps can send you on your way to a healthier, wealthier lifestyle where you–not the government or insurance bureaucrats–control your care and your choices.
(OOO, that’s nice!)