1. Not all companies give you such options 2. A lot of the cost is in fine print of things not covered, e.g. during our delivery two of the many many medical personnel were out of network and we ended up paying a huge co-pay for that — but it wasn’t like we could have checked ids for each doctor entering the room etc for insurance acceptance. They entered, they did something, they billed.

I feel like a law should be passed saying that, for any patient with a medical networks, any out of network related charges must be signed off on; individually.

Failing that, record yourself telling the hospital staff (or get it in writing) that any out of network charges will not be payed unless expressly signed for ahead of time.

Or maybe we can just pass a law saying everyone deserves access to healthcare and have a single payer system to avoid this bullshit

To some extent there is some legislative action (particularly at the state level) that addresses this.

The term commonly used here is “Balance Billing”, though that refers to a variety of “surprise” bills.

> They entered, they did something, they billed.

Very unfortunate. This makes the research into whether your preferred hospital/OB-associated-hospital is in- or out-of-network rather useless to some degree.

I did switch to the best available plan at the soonest date I could, but that was halfway into the pregnancy

Becoming pregnant isn't a qualifying life event, but having a baby is. So if you time it right with open enrollment, you certainly could switch to low deductible if such an option existed for your insurance plan.

The insurance options (4 different providers over the years, 3 BIG players in the game, one self-funded) I've had so far in my fatherhood haven't offered a stepped plan, either (they were all or nothing).