continues to pay $6,000 a month to keep her in a hospital. sounds like a reason to do something. we can tell you, a day later, reagan s secretary of health & human services issued that waiver he was talking about. it basically lifted a rule that would have sent 3-year-old katy home without any federal assistance and became known to some as the katy waiver. over half a million people have used it since 1982. when reagan met her in person, he gave katy a hug and told her deregulation in her honor one was the his greatest accomplishments. katy s parents would not have been on medicaid in the first place had they not maxed out their own private insurance. now in the days before obamacare, the unlucky faced annual and lifetime caps on how much their insurance would cover which was dangerous, as you ve heard about, for people with pre-existing conditions who could be denied coverage all together. unpaid medical bills became the nation s number one cause of bankruptcy.