You likely lose your job and your healthcare insurance, at least after some period of time, I'm assuming. (Fortunately I can't speak from experience.) So you

You likely lose your job and your healthcare insurance, at least after some period of time, I'm assuming. (Fortunately I can't speak from experience.) So you did not, in fact, have insurance against a very bad situation. All the more reason to eliminate employer-based health insurance tax incentives. I don't buy anything else through my employer. Why should I be insuring against my future medical bills through them? It obscures my effective insurance premia (via a lower salary), on top of the already obscured price of healthcare, since most insurance policies cover so many incidental, non-catastrophic medical costs.