I would love to be able to get, from my insurer, a low cost option just for this: patient pays 100% of their standard negotiated rates. I go to the same network, they pay the doctor and bill me for the payment. Premiums just need to cover their admin cost plus some insurance that kicks in if I do not pay.

Doctors should not care -- they still get the same $$ from the same source the same way. Catastrophic coverage can be arranged separately, but the above schema I think would provide much of the current insurance benefits at the much lower cost.

The benefits of health insurance aren't those your alluding to here.

The benefits of health insurance are the flow of money from your bank account to the insurer.

Your premiums are going up 74% next year, what are you going to do about it? Complain on an internet forum. Go ahead.

There are plenty of generic meds that cost less than $10 with the discount negotiated by the insurance company but cost upwards of $100 if you don't get the discount.

The calculation that "you get nothing with a high deductable plan" is not entirely accurate if you take these into account.

(that's what lots of drug discount cards are, you get a negotiated price instead of the cash price)

So having a PBM price is an included detail of insurance plans, I'm not sure how useful it is (I expect the formulary used by cheap insurance ends up similar to the free stuff).

What's also annoying is you can't determine ahead of time what something is going to cost, so even when it's not an emergency you can't shop around.