Here is my decision process when it comes to a doctor visit.

Is it totally impossible for me to stop the bleeding or fix a broken bone? If yes, then I will consider visiting the doctor.

Is the doctor visit one that is wise to have to prevent a future requirement for surgery, but otherwise elective? If yes, then I decide to take the chance because if I have a stroke, heart attack, or go blind, then it will cost me $6000 more than the $7200 a year I pay for insurance with a $5000 deductable and an additional 20% copay for the next $5000, so the insurance company will pay for 90% of the hundred thousand they negotiate for the retail $250,000 worth of care.

If my doctor will absolutely not renew my prescriptions unless I see him, then I will pay the $250-300 which is the negotiated 50% that my insurance company arranges as part of the $680 monthly premium I pay, but I tell him that I'm not going to agree to the expensive diagnostics like colonoscopy until I'm on government healthcare, and if something comes up before then, I will pay the $6000 deductable each year and depend on the insurance company paying the $250,000 for surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.

The way I figure it, the insurance company has run the odds and they have concluded that by encouraging me not to do more than take the relatively inexpensive drugs that a 100 million people should be taking based on the odds, the odds of my having a heart attack, stroke, or cancer is less than 50 to 1 each year, so the odds of my having a problem before government healthcare kicks in are less than about 10%.

Of course, I am not the typical individual who is buying individual health insurance; I don't know that I'm sick, and I have a lot of assets, though not as much as I would allow me to afford $12,000 a year for the kind of healthcare that government employees and people on government aid get for less than half that. So that means my odds are even better of not getting hit with something really bad, like most of the people who are driven to buy individual healthcare.

If I had no assets, I wouldn't bother getting health insurance because I would know that if I had a heart attack, stroke, or cancer, I would end up on government healthcare and wouldn't have to pay much if anything for it.

In other words, I'm operating within the parameters of the system that McCain is promoting. People are encouraged to buy health insurance, but not required to. But when someone with a preexisting condition wants insurance, McCain would have them get their insurance from a government run insurance plan which is subsidized by tax dollars.

This is a great system for delivering poor quality care to the poor, ok care to the middle class who pay the majority of the burden, and pretty good care for the well off without it costing them a lot, and then really really great care provided by the government for government officials like McCain.