I had really good insurance: low co-pays, free generic RXs, low out-of-pocket maximums/deductibles, etc.

Cue serious illness with organ failure: go to the only hospital that's covered by insurance in a 40 mile radius--no problem, completely covered. Great--except that the hospital fucked up, I go septic, and they ambulance me to a critical care center. It's not covered. Fuck. No other hospital will admit me in critical condition in the area that takes my insurance. Insurance then refuses to pay since the facility is out of the network; fight for days on end, still refuses as my condition gets worse and worse. Stay in the hospital for 3 months with 5 total surgeries: total bill roughly 400,000 USD. Can't afford to pay, try to get assistance--denied since I'm insured and make too much. Lose my job due to being out of work too long. Panic.

Try to recover; get a great job overseas and things seem to be getting better. Start having weird pains at work; vomiting starts with agonizing pain again. Coworkers drag me to hospital after hospital. Foreign hospitals are at a loss, pain won't go away--I'm forced to take medical leave and fly back home. Several (expensive) tests are run, and another infection shows up. I end up being grounded in the US because they can't remove the infection, forcing me to lose my job again from not being able to return to the country to work. Credit score takes another huge hit, drops from 802 to 500 since I can't keep up on my hospital bill payments nor any of my other bills. Can't pay anything. Unemployed, still sick, and forced into bankruptcy. Boyfriend who had a low-paying job is forced to become the breadwinner because I can't hold a job without being hospitalized every one-to-two months. Our income drops from 60k to 20k.

US healthcare literally does more harm than good; I wish I would have died on the table--it would have been so much cheaper.