[FoxInSocks]

In many cases, insured patients are getting prices that are higher than they would if they pretended to have no coverage at all.

That’s not news. I’ve told a doctor’s office that I don’t have coverage in order to get a lower cost. I asked about the price difference beforehand, and just told them to cut out the middleman and bill me directly.

[Alberta's Child]

There was a classic example of that played out on the pages of my local newspaper a few years ago. A guy who was facing some kind of elective surgery wrote a series of articles describing his disgraceful dealings with his medical insurer during the whole process.

The gist of the story was that he was facing something like $25,000 in out-of-pocket costs for his deductible and copays. And this was under a medical insurance plan that cost him $700+ per month.

A family member convinced him to shop around and see if he could pay cash instead.

He ended up dealing directly with a specialized surgery center … and got the procedure done for $7,000.

In his last column, he pointed out that he dropped his insurance coverage after that and saved himself more than $8,500 every year in insurance premiums.