Back in the mid-2000's, I was working two full-time jobs plus one part-time job (I know it is crazy, but it was the only way I could manage to support my family). One of my full-time jobs offered better health insurance than the other, but the other had better take-home pay, so I was getting my health insurance from the crumbier job. One day, I had an accident and broke my arm. I went to the hospital and the doctors said it would need surgery. I called my office and let them know I was going to need some time away. They said it would be okay if I had a doctor's note, and, since I was at the hospital, I had no trouble having a note faxed to the office within a few minutes. The next day came and my boss called and fired me over the phone, without cause. A few minutes later I had to go back to the hospital for surgery. I spoke with hospital people about concerns that my insurance would get screwed up and they assured me that a) my employer would not be able to legally cancel my insurance until the end of the month, and b) that even if I somehow got stuck with the bill, it'd be $1500-2000. Okay, so I had the surgery and, well, that's another story about how bad that process was boffed by the hospital staff, but, anyway, I ended up going home later that evening and everything seemed okay until about two weeks later, when I received my first bill. It turned out that my employer had been deducting my insurance payments but had canceled my insurance, not when I was fired, but several weeks beforehand, due to an "error" in payroll (to this day, I was never refunded the deductions, though, hmm), and they were unwilling to do anything to try to fix the problem. The medical bills from the surgery quickly exceeded $100k USD for a day surgery and a couple hours of recovery, and there I was, barely able to tread water before, now minus one source of income and under crippling debt. It took me ten years to get back on my feet after that. Now that full coverage medical insurance has become impossible for an average person to obtain, I'm back in the situation of having the minimum coverage allowed by law. If I were to be diagnosed with cancer, I would never be able to pay for treatment, so I'd be faced with the dilemma of either refusing treatment or accepting it knowing full well that no one would ever pay for it.

Thank you, Obamacare. I'm in the same boat. Just got diagnosed about a month ago, and so far the only expense in that direction has been the ultrasound and mammogram, needle biopsy, and mastectomy.

Cancer is avoidable in most cases. It has to do with body pH, a bad lifestyle, and chronic dehydration. After being diagnosed with emphysema 15 years ago, I began scouring the web for ways to cure it. In the process, I learn quite a lot about ways to take care of yourself and prevent disease. One of the things I learned was the cause of cancer and it's tied to dehydration. Mainstream medical professionals aren't interested in finding a cure because there is too much profit in the treatments, and they don't want people learning how to treat themselves - again, it's a matter of profits over people. Generally speaking, the laws of physics suggest that if you eliminate the cause of a disease, there is no reason for that disease to exist. But when you're talking about cancer and some other invasive health problems, other considerations come into play - just correcting the environment that causes it won't cure it because complications have set in, creating an autoimmune issue that requires additional treatments.