What is financial disaster?  Giving up your cable, Cell, and 2nd car? That really is subjective since no one has to bear financial disaster today if you consider how well they can live without paying a dime.  Better than Obama's brother.

Prior to the subprime crisis about half of home foreclosures were due to medical catastrophe.If you have seen people go through this you might better understand that it goes much further than your somewhat feeble attempt to trivialize the issue.

If they chose not to obtain insurance (which in turn helped to allow them to live in a nicer house), why shouldn't they be made to sell that house if they then need to pay for the medical costs? Obviously it shouldn't go to the extreme where they have no-where to live, but I don't see why people shouldn't be made to downgrade as a result, since the decision to not take insurance is essentially a risk - if it goes well you get the benefit of not having paid the money for nothing, if it goes badly then you get hit with a massive bill. If the government was to then bail you out for a large amount of that cost in situations where you could afford it (via selling your house) it would mean you could benefit from the full upside and only face a small part of the downside - the same sort of problem that will be caused by the recent company bail-outs as an aside!

Sometimes its not a choice. Medical Insurance is expensive for those who do not get it through their employer and supplementary insurance for those in copay situations can be expensive as well. Im fortunate enough to be able to have full coverage but it costs me twice as much as what my mortgage used to be. If I was young and just starting out in the career path that I followed in the past I would not have been able to afford both a house and medical insurance.

Losing a house can be much more than just a downgrade. Medical catastrophe doesnt lead to downgrading to a lesser expensive house. It leads to taking all the equity in a house and ruining your credit as well. It is more expensive in many markets to rent so some are often left with a situation that truly spirals out of control.

There is a large percentage of the population that get denied insurance because of preexisting conditions. Not such a big problem in the past when it was possible to stay with the same company or union for over 20 years but that scenerio is much less likely these days and is one of the reasons why there are so many people who are uninsured these days.

Your going to start seeing a large rise in this problem in the next couple of years because people wont be able to borrow as much or at all againt their house to prevent the worst from happenning (even if the medical expenses are not all that extreme) until both the credit and housing markets stabilize.

How do you know I have not?  You presume way too much. 

But that is not a financial disaster, and there is something called Bankruptcy, and homesteading.  Not really bad all in all.  And certainly not a disaster.l  As evidenced by the people that have been trhough it 3 and 4 times, not just ones.

And buying a house is not?

Look at some of the states. Some don't provide any exemtion to real estate for bancruptcy or homesteading declarations.

You might not be with me. I might understand the problem from both sides of the fence, but I dont see the lawn being green for quite a few years. Give it a few more years. As the number of uninsured rises a lot of people will realize that they are paying for the uninsured with their own insurance premiums anyhow. The taxpayer is already paying for those who are in the highest cost group so it won't be long before the only ones fighting it are those within the industry.

It depends on someone's income. I suspect it is for anyone who is near or below the median income.

I still think it should be mandatory just like auto insurance.

All do, some just are more generous than others.  I live in one of the worst states, and you still get $5 exemption.  Not a boat load, but not bad to start over with,

Facts are now a ringer?  No, I did not throw in a ringer, I just laid bare the poster child of this whole debate is a sham.  A self indulgent lazy ignoramus that wants to be coddled cradle to grave.  And that is being unfair?  Sorry Stevendedalus, I would throw out a snide remark at this point, however I know you are not that gullible.

And that is what it all comes down to.  No facts, just emotions and "think" - not understand or know.

Not true. Some don't. Most might and some are decent but not all.

Do you really think the average American is like this? If full health insurance is tough to afford for those at the average income level then you are talking about a lot of people.

Mass. did that when Romney was Gov. It will be interesting to see how that works out. It's probably best done at the state lvl. Personally I think a lot of stuff is best done that way. The biggest problem I see at the Federal lvl is that they all just want to bring the bacon home so nothing gets done right.

Better check with a bankruptcy attorney.  My wife is a paralegal in the field.  Let me give you a hint - they all do.

WHoa!  Nice jump there.  From one anecdote to all americans, and you probably did not even pass go.  What's next?  Able to misquote everyone with a single word?

Yea, and his achilees heel.  So far, Mass has locked up a lot of law abiding citizens, overspent (by a factor of 10) the program, and is crying poor mouth and "more taxes".  But the latter is just Mass, and probably not related to the boondoggle.

And don't forget about those who are considered "uninsurable" because they have a lot of medical conditions aka pre-existing conditions.  For those people if they aren't able to get onto a group insurance plan through an employer they are pretty well screwed.