[jen_h]

People who have serious, chronic pre-existing conditions (or less serious, say, an impending birth...or acne, or asthma, or are a little overweight, or are merely a middle-aged female--insurance companies can and will deny you for any of these things) are the most important matter...and good luck getting stopgap insurance or retroactively-dated insurance. In a lot of states, there's a single insurance provider who does the 'at-risk' stuff and has to cover you (for usurious prices), but you've first got to be denied coverage by a non-State insurance plan before you can go for the state's high-risk stuff (typically and hilariously, it's often the same company - they deny you the cheap 200/month insurance knowing you'll then be forced to fall back on the 1k/month policy from the state). This all takes time...if you're in the middle of, say, cancer treatments or something, damn, this is a nightmare you don't want to have to deal with. Especially on top of losing your income.

There are a lot of things I can sympathize with when a business goes under, but defaulting on your employees' health insurance with a 2-day notice in the US in our current climate (and not really even a real notice, from what I read, someone's doctor told them about it before the company did!) is pretty crappy.