= new reply since forum marked as read
My sister died of cancer because an insurance company death panel decided that since she had reached her "lifetime cap," her life was no longer profitable to insure. She was trying to declare bankruptcy so she could qualify for MedicAid when she died. 
. 
WHY this country even allows for-profit health insurance to exist is utterly beyond me. Even more insane and ludicrous is the mystery of why right-wingers think this is/was a great system. 
I'll try to make a long story short:
In Tennessee, we had a quasi-Medicare-for-all health system called TennCare that was established in the early 1990s by Democratic Gov. Ned McWherter.
It was a great idea and would have worked great if there had been a mandatory insurance by-in and if we weren't surrounded by other poor states. Once it was established, it worked great. People who worked full time, but weren't offered insurance and couldn't afford to purchase it were able to purchase TennCare insurance on a sliding scale fee based on income. Others were given TennCare instead of Medicaid.
But, because it was the best thing around, working people from surrounding states started moving here to get in on this, the funds were mismanaged by a subsequent Republican administration (imagine that. 
) and a lack of a mandatory buy-in made the program insolvent.
So, as Democrats often have to do, Gov. Phil Bredesen had to come in and start cutting the program. We're really not a rich enough state to raise a lot of new taxes - not that the Republican legislature would let Bredesen do that anyway.
Two of the people cut were my parents. My mother had health issues and only worked part time. My step-father worked full time for a small company that couldn't afford to offer insurance. They had been buying TennCare on the sliding scale. Once that was cut, they started shopping for private insurance. Because of my Mom's health problems, the cheapest they could get was three times more a month than their mortgage.
Needless to say, the had no health insurance.
Then, one day, 8 1/2 years ago, three weeks after my daughter was born, my step-father awoke with a pain in his groin. He'd been playing basketball the night before with my 8 year old son, so the thought he'd pulled something, but as the day wore on, he felt worse and developed a fever.
By that night, Mom took him to the emergency room. After, of course, noting that they had no insurance, the ER doctor didn't order any tests, didn't admit him and sent him home with only basic oral antibiotics.
Needless to say, he got worse and worse throughout the night and through the next day. Mom took him back to the hospital the next night. He passed out in the waiting room and never awoke again.
After three days on life support, his body started shutting down. He had toxic shock from some infection.
Had he had insurance, I have no doubt he would have been admitted the night before given his age, tests would have been run and they would have administered antibiotic injections. He may still have not survived, but at least we would have known that everything that could have been done was.
FWIW, the hospital's charity paid all of his expenses - probably to keep my mother from suing them - but not before my family had to suffer through his death, leaving my mother nearly destitute.
I hate insurance companies.
