Han wrote:
$800/month may be doable for you, but there may be people for whom it
is not. Example: 40-odd year-old couple (no kids, no more parents).
Both lost full-time jobs. One of them can retain the job, but is
only paid 50% as a part-time person. No benefits. Cobra costs over
$1000/month.

That can be tough in NY City.

A forty year old couple with no health problems shouldn't have to pay
anything like $1000/month. I pay $170 a month. The trick is to not expect
insurance to pay for every checkup and the like. I have a high deductible
indemnity policy--the deal is that they don't pay a cent until I accrue more
than $2000 expenses in a single year, then they pay _everything_. It's old
fashioned _insurance. The medical insurance business has moved away from
that model to one in which the insurance company pays for every checkup and
the like and on that basis there is no way for such a system to cost less
than the patient simply paying the doctor for routine checkups.