Imagine having to choose between selling your house or buying drugs for your child......most common cause of bankruptcy in USA; non payment of medical bills
Ok - sensational. Let's assume that you're in a situation in the US where you have a very sick child and run your assets out. First, the state CHIP program would provide insurance for your child (free) before you got there, but if you were also sick, you'd get disability and medicaid and the disability for your child. You are required to have assets below a certain level if you're getting medicaid, and not have separate income that you're hiding while you collect disability and medicaid, but you are not required to give up your house. If you have no money and a house, you have no money - not "you're not out of money until you sell the house".
There are a lot of people who have the means to buy insurance and think they'll risk it and they *do* get stuck in a medical bakruptcy, but if that occurs, you can discharge the bankruptcy in a filing and start over. If you have the money to pay the bill and you're uninsured, then you're stuck paying.
How far does the disability go? We have some well to do friends with a disabled child (born disabled, but think almost functional - just not quite). They collect disability for their child (which I don't have a problem with, by the way) and their child gets medicaid (which I don't have a problem with). Their means aren't considered with that - the system just provides them additional income and also provides their child with free medical coverage.
I'm sure this kind of truth won't be popular.
One of the biggest groups of risk takers in going uninsured, though, is small business owners. People start a business, they want to plow all of their money into it, so they take a risk. Then, the business becomes more comfortable and they just decide to keep kicking getting insurance down the road further.
There is one big hole in the system here, though, and that is early retirees who *do* have assets. Coverage for someone age 60 or so is about $20k for a very high value policy. If you budget for it, no problem. If you don't, you keep working - you won't be eligible for early medicare unless you qualify for disability for some reason, but if you do, I'm not sure whether or not such people can get medicaid before they run out their assets. It's generally said often here "i have to keep working for the insurance".
Our tax rates are much lower than the UK, though, so it's generally a matter of discretion. Housing is cheaper here, etc. If you wanted to have a couple with two trade jobs with benefits (which is something anyone can do without going to college, etc. Just go to the local and sign up as an apprentice) and you truly wanted to live spartan, you could make $120k as a pair and bank a large amount of it and be very comfortable (a lot of the trades have free or highly subsidized retiree medical, too.
All that said - if you want to be lazy, work only part time jobs that are easy and never really get motivated - this isn't the greatest place to do it.