My husband and I buy our health insurance as individuals on the open market. We are in our early 50's, we exercise, eat right, don't smoke....we do have wine with dinner because we're not absolute freaks. Just as a reality check for anyone not covered by a government single payer program of any kind or gets their health care insurance through an employer or another group plan, this is what it costs:
I shopped around and cost compared before purchasing this individual policy. It has a $2500 deductible per person and $20 copays for every office visit. We pay $786/month for this policy. The year I had appendicitis, I did meet the deductible. I was in the hospital for a total of 18 hours which cost $20,000. I ended up paying about 1/4 of that out of pocket so as you can see, once the deductible was met, I still paid another 20+ percent of the bill out of pocket.
So my health insurance costs $9500 per year in premiums alone now. The $2500 deductible per person should tell you this is not a gold-plated plan. We are in stellar good health so obtaining this insurance was not an issue.
Paul Ryan's $6500 voucher ($13,000 for both of us) barely covers me now when I'm relatively young and in good health. My insurance premiums go up at a clip of about 20%/year. If this were to continue, my $9500 policy would cost north of $26600 when I turn 65 in 14 years....about twice as much as what the voucher would be worth.
I realize Paul Ryan has never had to buy insurance on the open market so he doesn't know what it costs individuals to buy insurance but I'd love to hear from an insurance company that would offer comprehensive coverage for $6500 to someone 65+ that may not be in such good health. Really, I'm all ears.