> If you don't catch the cancer early on and can get some federal assistance to get it treated, you are pretty much screwed. They pretty much know with cancer you aren't going to be paying them back for any services rendered, so none rendered.

So you are calling parent a liar? That his story can't be true because someone without insurance but with liver cancer would just die under our heartless system?

> If you are a step above federal poverty level yet still cannot afford to pay for medical or dental treatment in this country, you are screwed.

You definitely have a problem, but I think you severely underestimate the amount of charity care that goes on in the US, which is why our hospitals charge so much anyways. You can go to the hospital, get treatment, they will bill you later, and...they won't run a credit check first.

> If you get cancer, your best bet is to then make sure your income completely disappears and apply for all the assistance you can get, your job income then becomes a liability.

You can get charity care without being on medicaid.