People are denied health care in U.S. because they can't afford health care

https://www.quora.com/Have-any-American-citizens-ever-been-personally-denied-healthcare-in-the-USA/answer/Rachel-Casale

Have any American citizens ever been personally denied healthcare in the USA?

Rachel Casale, studied at Johns Hopkins University
Answered Jul 24

Propaganda scare tactic? How about a daily reality. When I was 22, I started a new job, and I had to wait 30 days until my new insurance kicked in. One day I walked up a flight of stairs and keeled over, suddenly unable to breathe. I went to the local ER, where the triage nurse took one look at me, realized that I was in crisis, and immediately sent me back. Unfortunately for me, they then came to ask for my insurance information. The new nurse asked me why I even bothered to come in. My lips were blue… They sent me home without evem listening to my lungs. I couldn't stop crying because I didn't know what to do. That was Saturday. On Monday I was able to see my primary care doctor. She walked in the room, took one look at me, and asked me why I wasn't in the hospital. I explained the insurance issue, and she told me that I had to go to a different ER and lie so I could be treated. It turns out that I had 3 blood clots in my lungs. They asked me who they could call, because they didn't think I would make it through the night. Obviously, I survived, but because it took so long for me to be treated, part of my left lung died. This has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years, and many, many hospital stays.

Since I end up coughing up blood or having trouble breathing quite often, I have also spent a LOT of time in emergency departments across the country. When my husband became a federal agent, I started being ignored and treated rudely at the hospital. I finally realized that our insurance card, which said government on it, was being mistaken for Medicaid. So I had to start telling them immediately that my husband was a federal agent, or they basically would have left me to die. I also started noticing how often they did this to other people. I am a former paramedic, so I know when something is a medical emergency, and when it is not. I would start up conversations with people who were being ignored, and I discovered that they were ALWAYS people who were either uninsured or insured through Medicaid. These people were critically ill, yet were the last ones seen. After 7 hours of waiting, many simply gave up and left. Meanwhile, young white people were being rushed back with minor injuries. Yes, these people were literally dying in the ER. Healthcare in the US is a joke. We are the only first world country that simply allows people to die because half of us are too stupid to realize that a single payer system would be cheaper than what we have now, and the other half is too selfish to care about other people.