Here are some nasty statistics, generated by an independent and respectable method
Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study The survey was performed by the Department of Medicine, Cambridge Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Mass; the Department of Sociology, Ohio University, Athens; and Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Mass. This is not some insurance company 'study' that tells you what they want you to hear.
The findings? 62.1% of all bankruptcies are due to medical bills, and 3/4 of filers started out with "insurance"!! Most were middle class, college educated, and owned (note the past tense) their own homes. People who are poorer often can't even afford the filing fees - I know that when the dot bomb crash happened I couldn't even think about affording to file.
The 'insurance' industry is a rip-off - it eats 1 out of every 4 dollars paid in as "administrative expenses" (read that as "executive salaries, bonuses and shareholder profits"), and then denies care to people who need it most. Yes, a lot of companies
terminate coverage after a major illness has happened.
Yet jackasses like Baucus want to "mandate" that we pay these jackals, either through employers or privately, with "assistance" if we can't afford it. What good is that, if we can't get real coverage, just a token with high deductibles, high co-pays, low maximum coverages, and contracts riddled with exceptions, exclusions and loopholes for the benefit of the insurer.
Fuck that. Single payer, please.
Read the survey. It's a short PDF of what they found. Then think about what would happen if you ended up with, say, a stroke, cardiac problem, or cancer.