Every day that you have insurance, you need to be thankful for how much it does for you that you might not even be aware of. Not only does insurance make sure that the medical providers that you use are of a sufficiently high quality that they will provide you with good health care. Not only do they negotiate lower prices and pay for most of the costs when something goes wrong (especially if you are in network). Good health insurance can actually provide you with legal help, if something should happen to go wrong with the health care that you receive. While nothing (insurance or not) is ever going to be perfect, you do have a lot of extra options (as well as savings) when you do have insurance.
Think about how the process of getting into an insurance network goes. A medical provider has got to be checked out, both for any sort of malpractice type issues, and for the quality that they provide. If they are not rated up to a minimum standard for the care that they administer, they are not going to be allowed in. The insurance company is under no pressure to admit half hearted (or half witted) medical providers into their network- it is the provider who needs to work at impressing the insurance company, so that they will have access to the company’s pool of patients.
And consider the pricing power that the insurance company gives you. While one person can sometimes negotiate a better price for themselves on their own (especially if they plead poverty and offer to pay cash), the insurance company has far more power to do so. While every patient is obviously important, the fact is that an insurance company can steer thousands of them to the providers who play ball by the insurance company’s rules. If a provider wants to make a better living, then they have no better options than that.