thanks for explaining things i already know, and that have no fucking bearing on the question OP asked.
this isn't "whose health care experience is better and less costly" - the question was "what does US health care cost", which is the question i answered.
on the one hand - my wife and i didn't have insurance when my oldest was born, as i was doing contractor work overseas. Between one thing and another over the course of that year, we paid like $8k in medical expenses, including all the obgyn visits and the actual delivery, plus a hernia repair for me. The hospital was very easy to work with. Our income was very high so it was not exactly a burden. (8k was about 2% of total salary)
on the other hand - this year, with insurance we're going to pay about $6k in insurance premiums and $8k in medical expenses before we hit our deductible
(~7% of total salary)
on the gripping hand - last year we had really excellent insurance. we paid a total of $1200 for the year in premiums, $50/pay period, and our deductible was only $2k. (~1% of total salary)
how terribly classy