A deeper cut is that some Americans are just rolling the dice, they could afford better insurance but choose not to, even though after they got hit with a huge bill they would probably say something like, "in hindsight I probably should have paid the higher premiums for better coverage and could have taken a vacation to Missouri instead of Europe."
But there are also a lot of Americans that may not be able to afford higher premiums, even if they were better at budgeting.
And then politicians pick and choose which group of people they use as examples when talking about the healthcare system, depending on their goals/party. The truth is that both of the previously mentioned groups exist and get screwed if they have an emergency. It's a easier to say "tough luck" to the first group that was rolling the dice, but I would love to see actual change in the healthcare system.
I did my dissertation research using insurance claims data, so I've seen the actual amount of money that's changing hands and it's ridiculous. Even if normal people were able to get the negotiated rates that the insurance companies get, most families could not afford a surgery and week long hospital stay. I don't know exactly what the solution is, but I think one of the main roadblocks is that there are some people making a bunch of money and they are quite happy with the way everything works right now.