A medical student sees for himself how broken our health care system is. He writes about a typical ER encounter, repeated several times throughout the day:

Hi Doc, I’m here because I have chest pain. It started this morning, and it feels like an elephant is on my chest. What’s that? No, I don’t have a regular doctor. I don’t have insurance. What’s that? No, well, I had some medications given to me the last time I felt like this and came here, the doc said it was important I take it every day. But I ran out and each time I come to get a refill the wait is more than 12 hours here, and I can’t stop working for that long because I have to support my family, so I just kept putting it off. I mean I work 14 or 15 hours a day just to get by, I can’t afford to pay for the drugs. I have to put food on the table, doc. You understand, right? No, I don’t have a regular doctor, I can never get an appointment, and I can’t afford an outside one.

(via NHS Blog Doctor)