DENVER -- On Thursday, Oct. 22, the CALL7 Investigators aired a special report from inside Denver Health Medical Center. It showed the state of health care, as it exists today, in a large, publicly funded hospital.

Hosted by CALL7 Investigator Tony Kovaleski, the 30-minute special report, titled "Health Care: The National Emergency," offered the perspectives of four patients who did not have private health insurance and who were trying to navigate the often-convoluted and confusing world of health care.

Billions of tax dollars are spent every year on health care in the United States and the costs are rising. Taxpayer-funded options like Medicare, Medicaid and, to some extent the Denver Health Medical Center, exist to help some Americans defray the costs, but what is clear is that there is great inequity with regard to who is eligible for those programs and why.

"I had insurance with Starbucks for five years and never broke a bone. I've had been without insurance for a year and I broke a bone and it's horrible. It really is," said 25-year-old patient Amy Jennings.

Jennings broke her leg while hiking at Red Rocks and was taken to an emergency room at another Denver area hospital where her leg was put in a cast. Several weeks later, with little money to pay for surgery and no private insurance, she turned to Denver Health for help.

"Why did you come here?" asked Kovaleski.

"I heard that they'll work with you on a scale according to what you make," said Jennings.

A second patient who talked with Kovaleski was Rianda Dunham. She lives in a shelter, was recently released from jail, is battling addiction, and had her son taken from her by social services.

"I ran away from home and got involved in a lot of the wrong things. Lived pretty much everywhere in Arizona. Came here to Colorado about three years ago and have been here ever since," explained Dunham.

She came to Denver Health looking for prescription medication for anxiety and depression as well as a test for HIV, after learning a partner had tested positive.

"Rianda's story is a very typical story that we hear every day. We have patients present when they're released from jail where they need emergency medication refills and they really have no place to go," said nurse practitioner Melody Zwakenberg.

Zwakenberg explained that Rianda is eligible for the Colorado Indigent Care Program, a program that, in the last fiscal year, paid out nearly $195 million in taxpayer dollars to medical care providers who treat the uninsured and underinsured.

Frank Stribling is 58 years old and battling bone cancer.

"I've been one of the more fortunate people that have been helped by this good hospital," said Stribling.

For six years he has been routinely going to Denver Health for treatment of bone cancer. Medicare has covered the bill and Frank admits he had no idea how much his care has cost.

"I couldn't give you figures out of my head. But I know it has been way up there," said Stribling.

Irene Silva brought her 10-year old daughter, Nakiya, to Denver Health two days after the girl was stung by a bee.

"I'm a single parent. I support four girls of my own. I don't have the funds to take them back and forth to the doctor," said Silva.

Two days after the bee sting, the swelling in Nakiya's hand had not dissipated.

"It must be pretty comforting to know you have a place to go without any insurance," Kovaleski said.

"I wasn't too sure they were going to accept me today without any insurance, so I just took a chance," said Silva.

Uninsured Seek Care In Emergency Rooms

Amy, Rianda, Frank and Nakiya are four patients looking for different levels of care, each without private insurance and each hoping Denver Health can help.

"What are most people not seeing that you and your staff are seeing?" Kovaleski asked Linda Lenander, who runs the clinical social work department at Denver Health.

"I think access to health care is a huge issue. For those people that have insurance benefits, they can access primary care, preventive care. For those people that don't, they, unfortunately, wait until they get sick enough and end up in our emergency department," said Lenander.

According to hospital administrators, Denver Health has provided $3.4 billion in care for uninsured patients in the last 18 years.

"What I would like to see ... is [a combination of] the best of the marketplace medical care system and a government care system," said Dr. William Brown, a gastroenterologist at Denver Health who has been practicing medicine for 50 years. He believes any reform of the American health care system will have to have limitations.

"There's rationing in every system in the world and there'd have to be in any system, some sort of constraints on what you can spend. Everybody can't have everything," Brown said.

Rationing Occurs Now

It's clear from the patients profiled in the CALL7 Investigators special report that rationing occurs now, in some fashion, with private insurance and public health care options.

Nakiya, because she's a child, was eligible for coverage under Colorado Family Medicaid and the Colorado Health Plan Plus. Her medication and doctor's visit was covered by taxpayers.

Rianda Dunham, too, received prescription medication and a doctor's visit on the taxpayer dime. But Amy Jennings was not so fortunate.

She's too old to be eligible for children's programs and too young to qualify for Medicare.

"It's frustrating just not being able to go to a doctor and be seen," Jennings said.

With no private insurance and existing public option, Jennings is stuck with a huge unpaid bill for her broken leg and because it's not an emergency, she can't even have her cast properly removed.

"Not being able to move my ankle would be a huge setback. I really am not going to try to skate by on it, but if it comes down to it, I might have to wait until I save up the $4,600," said Jennings.

Frank Stribling's care reached hundreds of thousands of dollars and may have eclipsed the $1 million mark.

"There are people who are critical of people like you ... who don't have health insurance and asking, 'Why do we have to pay for you?' How do you answer that criticism?" asked Kovaleski.

"Well, you listen to it but you don't let it affect you. You know what you did and you know what you paid in your lifetime to society," Stribling said.

Just days after the interview, Frank Stribling died.

"It needs to be fixed where everybody can at least get a chance at getting better and staying well. You know your health is the most important thing. You know you got money but without your health, you got nothing," said Stribling.

"Health Care: The National Emergency" airs again on KMGH-TV on Oct. 23 at 10:35 p.m., Oct. 24 and 9:30 p.m. and Oct. 25 at 4 p.m.