Dental care though is quite the racket. Like health care, it's beyond the expertise of its consumers and subject to all manner of scams. Insurance at least provides a check on this tendency. Converting health insurance into pre-paid health care removes the need to control costs. The difference is that insurance providers have to try to predict the future, set rates based on those predictions, then hold cost down in order to meet those predictions. But with pre-paid health care they just add up the bills and divide them between their subscribers. It's basically socialized medicine with private administration.
It's great that we got rid of the individual mandate, but until we get rid of the pre-existing condition requirement I think we're still on the road to socialism.
I pay $275 a year for two dental cleaning and one of those is a full checkup with X-Rays. It’s a very nice office with very nice people, and considering the time I am there and the equipment at their disposal to provide this service, I’m quite happy with the arrangement.
I think the pre-existing condition mandate will eventually increase insurance costs so much that only those WITH pre-existing conditions will buy it. The rest of us will buy health care like we buy food, auto-repair, etc. Which means the providers will need to price accordingly. :)