They have also, at times, proposed a reversion to the old employer-based rules wherein you only get protection if you can show uninterrupted coverage. Once the coverage lapses your preexisting protection vanishes.
That's better but really only sensical if the state seamlessly takes over for the patient's care immediately upon discharge of their insurance. From a cost-benefit analysis, we'd probably be best off within our healthcare system doing things this way, but of course "seamlessly" is far from reality, so patients in the gap between disability/Medicare/Medicaid coverage end up utilizing healthcare in the highest cost way (emergency room and acute care hospitalization) while getting sicker and sicker and costing much more to the state to cover their care than it would have costed to do so up front. But from a numbers game perspective, it's always easy to show that not covering a person saves money. Well, it saves you money if you're the one paying for their care directly. Except hospitals find ways to pad the costs of providing care to well insured patients to cover their losses on (badly) caring for uninsured or underinsured patients, and certain institutions rely on public funding through block grants, University affiliation, charitable organizations, etc.
In the end, we have America. Because we everyone is trying to save money providing healthcare, we end up spending more on it than anyone else and getting no better and in some cases worse outcomes for it.