C'mon, HighQ. That can't be true, though I must admit I did wonder about that.

In some cases, people die. It's unfortunate. In others, drug companies subsidize the medication that's needed. That's what they did in my mother's case. Her chemo was subsidized by the company that manufactures the drug. She's been in remission for six (?) years. Maybe seven. Other people get help from friends or philanthropic organizations.

Even when people do have insurance, that doesn't mean all of their expenses are covered. I have a friend who recently had a double lung transplant. He has plenty of expenses that are not covered by insurance, so I (and many others) have been contributing to help with those.

In other cases, people who are wealthy and can afford to help do so behind the scenes, despite their being villainized for being "the one percent." A friend of mine relocated to Houston in a last ditch effort to get treatment for her multiple cancers in a trial that is being run there. A benefactor rented an apartment for her and is paying all of her living expenses while she goes to the treatment center.

In still other cases, many doctors donate their time. There are options, and we do what we can to take care of each other. The United States and its not-quite-free-yet market is not the cold, callous place that detractors try to make it out to be. Yes, there are some people who fall through the cracks, but we try to eliminate those cracks where we can. What we don't do is force euthanasia on patients to cut costs for our socialized medicine program. We leave that up to France and the UK.

Thank you Wordmage for the insight. Interesting. So, if I decide to live in America, I'd better make sure that I'm financially sound and many people like me just in case I might need their financial support.

Incidentally, euthanasia is "illegal" in the UK.
Meanwhile, in 2016, a law came into force in France granting terminally ill patients the right to continuous deep sedation (CDS) until death. ... The law draws a distinction between CDS and euthanasia and other forms of sympton control at the end of life. France is the first country in the world to legislate on CDS.
Just for your information.

@Naomi "Incidentally, euthanasia is "illegal" in the UK."

And yet, in recent months we had news here of a disabled baby being condemned to die against the parents' wishes and despite an offer of intervening, life-saving surgery at no cost (as I recall) from a US specialist/team.

@Naomi @Naomi "So, if I decide to live in America, I'd better make sure that I'm financially sound and many people like me just in case I might need their financial support."

Financially sound is always preferable, isn't it? It also enables us to help others.

@Naomi "the right to continuous deep sedation (CDS) until death. ... The law draws a distinction between CDS and euthanasia ..."

And apparently France sometimes enforces that "right" against the patient's family's wishes, per recent news.

Ah, that. I seem to remember that the American specialist also concluded that he couldn't have saved the baby, realising the seriousness of the condition... You're well informed.

Absolutely Wordmage.

I don't have the answers to all your questions – you packed a lot of them into that rant.

However, your characterization of the recession of 2008 having been caused by banking corruption is an oversimplification. Doubtless there were corrupt actors in the banks, but the problem stemmed just as much from government involvement and regulation. For instance, the housing boom & crash that we witnessed came as a direct result of the government's requiring banks to give loans to people who couldn't actually pay them back in a grossly misguided attempt to counter alleged racism. It wasn't racism that kept people from getting home loans, it was finances.

Also, we're well aware that we don't actually have a free market in our medical/healthcare industry right now. There is massive government regulation there, too. The fact is, nobody is smart enough to "hire the people who are smart enough to see through the layers and layers of…" because these economic matters are too complex for anybody to fully understand & predict. Those mythical "people who are smart enough" simply don't exist. So why do you think we should give the power to government to regulate the market, if you can't find someone who smart enough to see through the layers…? Why do people assume that being in government somehow gives these pencil pushers greater insight and a higher intelligence quotient? It's an oft-observed and well documented fact that it doesn't.