If you can only use it for routine and preventative care, and not for emergencies, it's not insurance. It's a backwards payment plan that puts all the risk on the patient, instead of the insurance company. It doesn't "insure" anything. It only insures that you lose coverage when it stops being a payment plan.

Calling it insurance is a farce.

That's the one thing a really don't like about Obamacare: it's doing away with "catastrophic insurance" which is really what insurance actually is.

But I suspect when given the choice between cheap insurance or an expensive payment plan, everyone would pick the former.

That's because the US has turned into a defacto buyer-coalition system where you have to pay to join a club (health insurance provider) which negotiates rates with health care providers. If you don't join such a club, you get charged rates that can be significantly higher (read 2x or more).

I agree

Insurances should not be priced 'bottom to top', the basic coverage should cover the more needed and costly procedures then start adding more 'optional' coverage with increased payments.

Yeah, in the US (as someone who works in the health insurance industry) - what is described as 'health insurance' in the US meets very few of the definitions of 'insurance'.

It's really more accurately "(Group) Healthcare Cost Amortization".