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I suspect you are shooting from the hip here again.

Yeah, I've become quite proficient at hitting targets that way.

Your own reply #26 is testimony to the ineffectiveness and abuse of Dubya's proposal.

Here's a fact, in any insurance contract/policy, the higher the deductible, the lower the price. My friend who's a doctor once had a health insurance policy with a $10,000 deductible. This was ten years ago and he paid about $1000 a year for a family of 5. In effect he was buying catastrophic health insurance and was self-insuring for the first $10,000. This type of policy is illegal in New York State. If I could put away $3000-5000 tax free and take out such a policy, I would do it in a NY moment. Right now I pay $11000 for a family of four. The cost would probably go down to about $3000 and with the $3000 I put away, I would save at least $5000 per year. My total family medical bills amount to about $5000 per year and I currently pay about $2500 of them.

Well, it is a bit more complex than that. I have an incentive to withdraw from this "supplemental IRA" before I die for medical expenses, since I can withdraw tax free. Basically, after paying the deductible on the insurance policy, it allows medical expenses to be fully deductible without having to surmount the 7.5% threashold on Schedule A. But there is no need to rush. In the meantime, I can earn pretax interest rates on an after tax basis. If I die in an auto accident suddenly, my heirs lose.