How are you employing it?
[personal details removed]
"Where to get private health insurance?" Google it? I think pretty much every state has a BlueCross insurance company you can call up to ask. You'll probably spend between $500 and $1000/month, per person in your family, depending on state and age.
I despise employer-provided insurance - we have an entire culture of people who feel extra-dependent on 'employers' and who don't seem to know how to find out basic information.
You have a more than comfortable nest egg. Go pursue your passion before it's too late.
The GP was talking solely about dividends, but most funds will re-balance and distribute long-term capital gains to you if you wish. If, in 2020, you held $1.5MM in a mix of those funds and instead of reinvesting dividends, long-term, & short-term capital gains, and instead redirected them to your bank account. You'd have something like $80k distributed and your market value would have increased to like 1.7-1.8MM.
Not that 2020 was a typical year or anything. But the past 8 or so years have told a similar story.
Even if one overspends a little extra in those initial years paying a mortgage on a nicer place, much of that will be recouped upon sale, since places in cool areas tend to appreciate quit quickly and mortgages are highly leveraged.