For want of half a million dollars, an uninsured 47-year-old woman’s life may have been lost–Jeanne Sullivan didn’t get onto the liver transplant list immediately because she had neither insurance nor $500,000 spare dollars to cover the costs of the surgery. She couldn’t buy private insurance because of the pre-existing blood clotting disorder that eventually necessitated the transplant.

Jeanne didn’t qualify for public insurance because her partner Tommy, a self-employed contractor, made too much money for Jeanne to qualify for Medicaid. Tommy couldn’t buy private insurance for Jeanne because of the aforementioned pre-existing condition. Her family started fighting for Medicaid coverage long before the final crisis, but even so, the paperwork wasn’t completed by the time Jeanne really needed it.

Jeanne’s sister Ron explains how this lethal Catch-22 made her sister’s last weeks a living hell and may well have killed her.