What do you see as the purpose of health insurance?

A personal example here. I had a serious heart problem some years ago which required that I have a pacemaker implanted so I would not die. The pacemaker's cost was $20,000, not including the separate hospital charges. If my health insurance had not paid for this device I would have died. I do not believe that health care should be rationed by insurance companies who have no idea of what a patient's actual condition is. You can't tell all that much from what a doctor writes on a form for the insurance company. I believe that we should have a single-payer system as Sen Clinton has proposed in the past. Under such a system all taxpayers would pay so that all people can receive appropriate health care. It doesn't make sense to me that insurance companies should have the power of life and death over people. We've all heard stories about how patients with cancer have been denied coverage for life-prolonging chemotherapy and/or radiation treatments and how, if they wanted to have the treatments, would have to sell their homes or borrow huge sums of money in order to pay for it. I would be willing to pay increased taxes into a universal health insurance plan so that I and others could get the treatment we need. The system we have now just plain sucks and costs people far more than they would have to pay in increased taxes for health care. People moan and groan that universal health care coverage is socialism in disguise. Not so. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are in place. So we already have this kind of thing as part of our way of life in the US. I don't know what people are crying about here. Let it be known that our elected officials get full health insurance coverage for themselves and for their familes as long as they live. This is at taxpayer expense. How fair is that?