As a Nurse, It Breaks My Heart That Patients Are Already Anticipating Their Own Deaths

I work as a nurse at a hospital. I float all over the hospital and work on several floors. I get to meet patients from different aspects of care every day. What's amazing is the amount of people who are capable of being there at all. I get told all the time that the "only reason" they are there for treatment is because they finally have insurance, or that a family member was able to be treated for cancer because insurance could not deny them.

This system is not a flawless one and needs a lot of work still, but the ACA has been able to treat people who may have committed suicide, who may not have been able to recover, who may have died without it. Yesterday, I had a patient tell me they were scared of what will happen to them *when* the ACA goes away. "I'll probably die, you know. I won't get treatment if my children will have to pay for it still years later. It's not even guaranteed to work." It broke my heart that people are already anticipating their own deaths.