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OpinionFirst Opinion

My husband’s suicide shows there’s something very wrong with the U.S. insurance industry

I’m a physician. We had good insurance. He died anyway

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By Joy Evers<br>July 20, 2026

Evers is a board-certified emergency physician, Mayo Medical School graduate, and host of the podcast "Your Doctor Wants to Quit."

I remember standing outside an exam room, phone vibrating in my breast pocket, when the coroner’s call came through. I hadn’t wanted to believe the neighbor’s frantic text about a body bag removed from my husband’s condo, but the medical examiner’s office on my caller ID was unmistakable. I answered, and sounds fell out of my mouth into the phone: “Hello, this is Dr. Hardison.”

I am an emergency physician living in the U.S., and we had one of the top commercial health insurance plans. When my husband, Randy, became suicidal for the first time in his life, I thought I could find him the best care, our insurance would pay for it, and he would get better. Only one of those three things actually happened.<br>Advertisement

The coroner confirmed it was suicide by asphyxiation. He asked if I could send a recent photo to help ID the body. “In a few minutes I can — I have a patient waiting.” I put the intrusive visual of Randy’s bloated face into a compartment of my mind that was sealed off from the task at hand.

On the other side of the exam room door was a toddler propped in her mother’s arms, coughing between guppy breaths. My face rearranged into calm, and I greeted the mother and child as my eyes darted to the monitor showing low oxygen and fast pulse — signs of respiratory distress. I put the child on oxygen and ordered a breathing treatment and a chest X-ray. The little girl gripped my index finger as I listened to her lungs, and we looked at each other with wonder. Each rise and fall of her chest seemed a miracle.

I felt safer in that exam room than in the outside world. I knew what to do in that room, and in that room, I could make things better. Outside of that room, all bets were off.<br>Advertisement

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“I’d like to test her for influenza and RSV,” I said to the mother.

“Will our insurance cover that?” She mouthed it to me so her daughter wouldn’t hear.

“I hope so,” I told her. “I don’t know why they wouldn’t.”

As I stepped out of the exam room, I became aware of my veins pulsing and a white noise filling my head. Chest paralyzed, I didn’t scream. Instead, I paced down the hall and out the metal door to sit on the curb, waiting for breath to come.

I had fallen in love with Randy because his optimism was magnetic. When his startup began achieving significant milestones after years of sweat equity, he had even more reason to be optimistic. I still have the photo of Randy and his co-founder posing with their first large check, their faces painted with true bliss.

Months later the success fizzled, but Randy never told me how bad things were until the demise of the business was inevitable. The way he tried to protect me from the truth created an ever-expanding distance between us. Each day he withdrew deeper inside an impenetrable shell, and my attempts to connect were met with anger.

As a doctor I should have seen this behavior as a sign of burgeoning depression, but instead I felt wounded by his abrasive tone. I grew fearful of asking questions because they were met with irritability.

One Friday morning, less than four months before the coroner’s phone call, Randy texted me from our home office: I need help. When I opened the glass French door, I was shocked to find Randy on the daybed in a fetal position.

“You have to hide me,” he stuttered. “The investors … they’re coming for me. You have to get me out of here.”

“Randy, that makes no sense. Just talk to them. What’s happened?”

“I can’t do...