Full title: 92% of American adults aren’t going to a doctor because they cannot afford it. The health insurance industry must be dissolved & all of its executives criminally prosecuted for murder, conspiracy, and treason.
A lot of times, you just get a big bill without them doing anything useful for you.
Patient: “You misunderstand, the diagnosis isn’t behind a lock, the medicine is.”
Doctor: “Fair enough, I’ll permanently label you as ‘drug-seeking’ and this isn’t libel somehow.”
Which they have to keep an eye out for because doctors fell for drugmakers’ lies and overprescribed addictive opiates while claiming they aren’t addictive (which makes it even easier to get addicted).
Or they just use that as an excuse to not have to deal with an annoying case they can’t flash diagnose and then get offended if a patient decides to do their own research because the doctors they see can’t be bothered.
I always think back to the time my ex was trying to get a diagnosis for a rare condition that matched her weird symptoms very well. She got a new family doctor, a young new doctor, and he would always dismiss her when she brought up wanting a referral to a clinic that specialized in it so they could diagnose her or rule it out. One time I went with her, she brought it up again, he said he didn’t think she had it, and all I did was ask what made him think this wasn’t the case and he admitted he didn’t know much about it and would do some reading. On her next appointment, she didn’t even have to ask because it was as obvious to him that she probably had it as it had been to us, he just gave her the referral.
So his justification for dismissing her belief she might have that condition was jack shit, probably involving imagining House saying “it’s never lupus” or something like that. Like yeah, rare conditions are rare but some doctors treat that as if it’s impossible instead of rare and then don’t even bother learning how to tell.
The Dunning Kruger effect seems to be particularly strong in the medical field. Though to be fair, they do have to deal with their share of idiots and liars, but it makes them jaded rather than sharp.
This is why i stopped going.
All of the hospitals in my state were purchased by Atlantic Health.
My friend works for the hospital. The highlight of their quarterly meeting is how much profit the hospital now makes.
Why do hospitals need to make profit?!
Why are corporate owned hospitals even legal?!
I hate this timeline.
equity firms are ruining healthcare, by staffing less doctors in some areas.
It is cheaper to keep people healthy through preventive care than it is to treat illness. From a taxpayer point of view, a single payer system would save us money.
But people are so propagandized in this country that they seriously think private insurance is the better option.
People pay a fortune in premiums, then another fortune in deductibles, before they can even use their insurance. Most families never actually get to that point unless they are “lucky” enough to have a family member who gets sick or injured badly enough to meet the deductible. Then you can finally use your insurance for the rest of the year.
We paid for years, and got literally nothing out of it, until I fell off a roof and got a bad concussion, and a big enough bill that our deductible was met. That was in September, so for the next few months we went to every doctor we needed, got every test we’d been putting off, etc. It was the only time we got full use of our insurance, so we took advantage of it, after paying in tens of thousands of dollars for years.
Medicare 4 All would give us full use of our insurance on January 1 every year, without having to worry about any deductibles. It might cost a couple of hundred extra dollars in taxes, but you’ll save $600 month in health insurance premium, and $4500 per year in deductibles, so you’ll come out far ahead, and have actual health insurance.
As an outsider seeing the US from the internet, can I guess that you didnt get Medicare 4 All because people went :
“4 All? But like, not those people too, surely? Oh hell no. Something something socialism bad.”
No, we didn’t get it because our politicians are partly owned by the insurance companies.
The majority of people want Medicare for all and even more if you explain it without including the name.
We nearly had a public option in the Affordable Care Act, but then Democrats watered down their proposal before it ever went to up for an actual vote thanks to Lieberman. Which of course ended up making it a huge boon to the insurance companies, resulting in our current state of affairs.
The public option was never going to be in the final bill. It was there to be negotiated out for republican votes. When they refused to play ball, Lieberman had to play the part of the bad guy.
Lol, they had a super majority at the time. They never needed the Republican votes.
A large part of the democratic party identity at the time was bipartisanship. They used that as an excuse to water down any sort of public good legislation. It’s why they started with a republican health insurance reform bill instead of single payer and it’s why they ended up negotiating against themselves to drop the public option in the end.
I’m well aware. Still doesn’t change the fact that it was a self-inflicted wound, and that they took out a public option when they didn’t need to.
That’s the meme, but I think it’s more that insurance companies spend fortunes to
bribelobby for politicians to vote against it, not to mention fortunes in propaganda to push the narrative that universal healthcare is more expensive.Universal healthcare is actually a bipartisan issue among the people. But as you expect, one side is really good at reframing terms to make it sound like It benefits the “non-deserving”. The main “issue” over the decades is that everytime they try to creep this into making all insurance worse they get pushback.
So, kinda.
I didn’t even get to use my insurance.
We met our deductible for a baby. A month before birth our company switched insurance providers. Back to zero. I’m still paying hospital bills 7 months later.
How did you see a doctor if you didn’t make an appointment before September? It takes 4-5 months to see a doctor where I live. This country is such shit
How do you know you’ll need a doctor in 4 months??!? How do the other people booking that far out know they’ll need one? When you need a doctor, you need one soon, preferably today. Do you just book an appointment per week and cancel if you don’t need it?
If it’s an emergency - the er. If it’s not an emergency - an “Urgent Care” type place. But not your actual Dr unless you plan months in advance.
Are we talking “no, sorry I can’t get a chest infection right now, I need to schedule an appointment with the doctor firat, but I should be able to fit you in in 4 months or so”? I ask because I know the US healthcare system is bad, but I have difficulty judging how bad.
If you have an urgent problem you go to urgent care. I had one, I went to urgent care after work, I got seen, got the prescription, and went home and got my pills.
If you say “hey I have this problem where my back hurts sometimes” then they’ll schedule you for the next available appointment. Depending on how busy they are, yes that could be months out. You might try a different doctor if you can.
I feel like I answered this question in the post you are responding to?
It helps if you tell them that you e met your deductible, which means you are now a bottomless pit of health insurance money, and want to schedule all the tests you’ve been putting off. They’ll find room in the schedule.
Medicare for all will happen once enough Americans figure out that $2000/year in taxes is less than $8000/year in premiums/deductibles. So it could take awhile.
92% not going and yet I still have to wait 6-8 weeks for a visit with my PCP, to be mostly ignored and referred to a specialist, then 6+ months for a specialist to be told I need to go back to my PCP to redo all the diagnostics they did at referral because the results are too old now…
PCP visit is supposed to be scheduled in advance, because it’s not an emergency. If you ask for a sooner appointment, they can call you when a cancellation occurs and see you sooner.
My bad - next time I have an unexpected but non-emergency medical issue I’ll be sure to plan it in advance.
It’s not like I’m not already asking for the first available. The only reason I’ve ever had any of them call me is to tell me my appointment has been pushed several weeks to a time I can’t make and moved to a town an hour away.
doesnt your healthcare provider have an online portal? cant you contact them about the results ahead of time?
not all the time, they can have emergency appts, and sometimes they also bring in a roving specialist. it depends on your insurance, and the network.
that is annoying. i have something similar happen. i messaged online portal my derm recently about a rash , and he basically was annoyed and said go to your Pcp to be treated about this “simple problem”.
Even for me, with health insurance, one of the reasons I tend not to seek health care is due to the surprise and unpredictable costs. I’ve already fallen into that trap twice this year alone.
The very first thing I did when I was choosing a plan for this year was filter the list down to the ones I could afford which said they covered all my prescription meds and for which my current health providers were “in-network”. That left 2 options.
When I went to get my first round of refills, several months into the year, they said I had to have prior authorization for one of my meds. After going through that process several times, provider who writes the prescription has to jump through the hoops with insurance to get the authorization, the insurance finally came back and said “we don’t/won’t cover this prescription.” My provider was able to find a cheaper, older alternative that works, but I pay out of pocket 100% for it.
Then came my annual physical, which is free with insurance. Because of the meds I’m on, the nurse said they needed to do some blood tests to check for signs of problems. Never mentioned that those tests would cost me extra and obviously I did not know. Wouldn’t have mattered, because they wouldn’t have been able to tell me up front how much it would cost so that I could make a financial decision about it. In the end, that free annual visit cost me almost $400 that I was not anticipating. The bills started showing up months later, so it completely blindsided me.
Last year was even worse. I had one of the best insurance plans offered through the ACA. Then I had an accident that landed me in the hospital. The ambulance ride was not covered at all, the service was “out-of-network” so I had to pay 100% of that. The 2 tylenol I was given for pain management in the emergency room cost me $40 because insurance would not pay for them without prior authorization. I hesitated to even call for help, hoping I could stop the bleeding myself, because I knew it was going to be an expensive trip to the ER and boy was it ever. Not to mention the follow-up appointments and treatment that was required.
Same. I had to have a CT brainscan this year. The scan was ordered during my annual physical based on routine questioning so I thought nothing of it. Many moons ago I had to have a CT brainscan in the ER and it cost like $25 with insurance. I figured, surely this scan that is being scheduled would cost the same or possibly less, so nothing to worry about. Nope! $500 for the exact same procedure on the exact same machine with the same insurance plan.
What’s shocking is our inaction.
And they are still paying for that insurance they can’t afford to use.
That’s so you’ll just go bankrupt instead of thrown out on the street to die.
I don’t have data, but as a pharmacy worker one thing that seems very apparent to me is people with non-european/white names getting way more insurance rejections.
Also, insulin and inhalers should not be so consistently headaches to deal with. Inhaler insurance issues make me want to rip my hair out.
im not surprised, they probably “statistically” think with data that poc are likely lower income earners and are less likely to afford insurance long term, or pay out of pocket for expensive procedures, medications and would drop insurance at the moments notice. they know white people are often gainfully employed in higher salary jobs, if not wealthy and are good on thier payments for everything for healthcare. white people have better outcome for healthcare than POCs as a result, of being in higher paid jobs. also poc tend to have more chronic issues that are often neglected or go untreated for long and is expensive to the companies, because they want to avoid paying too much to go the doctors in the first place. while caucasians/european tend to see doctors the first thing they suspect something is wrong.
coming from a poc family, we often put of some medical issues until it gets hard to ignore.
Brits love to complain about the NHS, and rightly. After 14 years of right wing governments underfunding it it’s on it’s knees.
However if someone tried to replace it with an American style system we’d make the way the French protest look tame.
Sorry but I doubt it. Brits are really not good at standing up for themselves. They are replacing it with an American style system, just a little bit at a time. In the last 30 years it’s come about half way, and it might take another couple decades to really finish the job, but I think it’s likely they’ll succeed in the end.
Just waiting for that one really charismatic Tori to come out and say the NHS is the problem. Thatcher 2 is gonna be hilarious
No you won’t. You’d take it like we did.
[In the voice of Mr. Perfect Cell]
So…um… What are you going to do to them?
The survey that the article is based on seems pretty fishy to me. It’s conducted by some financial services company that is mostly involved in selling financial products, not doing research. The methodology section is pretty threadbare and they don’t provide the survey data itself.
The figures are also way out of line with more reputable research organizations like the KFF which estimates that 17% of Americans delay or avoid healthcare due cost.
Is 17% still really high and an unethical travesty in the wealthiest country on earth? Yeah. But there’s no way that 92% of people are skipping the doctor due to cost. Just as an example, the top quintile of earners in the US make more than 300k per year. I doubt that anyone in that group in delaying or avoiding healthcare due to costs and yet the survey would mean that a good chunk of them are.
There’s no way it’s only 17%. The percentage of uninsured was estimated over 8% in 2024, before insurance premiums skyrocketed and Republicans voting to kick millions off of Medicaid.
isnt MEHMET oz/RFK JR, trying to get medicaid/care to only apply if the patient/enrolle is working 80hrs/month(this automatically puts people over the medicaid limit already by default for most states)
I don’t know any specifics other than they’re trying to make sure health care costs go up until only the wealthy can ever get medical assistance, that the poor can’t get any kind of help with affording those costs, and that as many lower income babies as possible die from diseases we can easily vaccinate against as possible.
And to make sure there’s no such thing as gender affirming care for trans folks, so that Republicans can feel safe raping whatever child or adult they pick out without having to worry it might make them gay.
Exactly. There was an article on here that said that self check out saved grocery stores 300 billion dollars a year when total revenue for the entire grocery industry is a trillion dollars.
This sub needs significantly better fact checking and moderation. This is obviously a nonsense article with a nonsense number with a % sign after it.
The survey showed that over nine in ten (92%) of insured respondents had delayed or avoided medical care because of concern about cost.
But the methodology seems wonky indeed, 1507 should be a decent sample size for statistical purposes. But half of the respondents are self-employed and only 1% is unemployed, which explains the “average out of pocket per income level” section, flying all over the place.
But 92% of insured, having delayed medical care is a massive finding.
Although the methodology makes one raise eyebrows, for how they’re able to include income brackets of “0$”, as that at most seems to be 15 respondents.
Addition, at a second look they claim .5% are in the no income bracket. Which is 7/8 respondents. Why would they even include that section then?
I guess there’s also different levels of “skipping”. If I was an American, I’d be skipping it unless I’m deathly suffering, whereas here I’d go if it’s sufficiently debilitating.
or people also s kipping because thier doctors are doing the bare minimum, or half assed with an appointment, and then becoming annoyed with them, and the patients wait it out if thier symptoms improved, because going to doc would result in the same lame thing.
I have not had insurance my entire adult life, because it was too expensive, and the jobs I was able to work didnt offer it. So I only go once a year, when I’m forced to in order to get my meds for the next year… and any issues I have, I hope and pray linger until this appointment, because I cant afford to pay 200+ dollars every time i have an issue that i need a doctor for.
the only experience I’ve had with insurance, in my adult life, is handling an elderly relatives medical issues. They have medicare.
Medicare is fucking awesome. Anything they need, poof, its done. no delays, no awaiting approvals, just get it fucking done. Most of their drugs are free (at least until trump gets rid of part d…), and the one that isnt, is only like 5 dollars, for a 90 day supply (so 20 bucks a year for meds). They have had multiple major surgeries, and the copay was like 30 dollars each time.
Not once have they ever been told they cant have a treatment, or that they have to go through some bullshit process of trying 3 other things before they can get the treatment the doctor orders, nothing.
Medicare is fucking awesome and everyone should have it.
The experience with medicare is basically how it is for almost every person in Germany (public health insurance).
The only thing the doctor/hospital care about is that you have the card, you put it into a card reader and that’s it. There is also a small part that you have to pay of the price of drugs if you pick them up at a pharmacy.
My wife recently gave birth and the only costs we will have to pay are around 10€ per day for her stay and we had a family room for a few days, which means I could sleep and got food there too, which will cost 50€ per day or so. I don’t even know how much the insurance will have to pay to the hospital, it doesn’t affect me.
So with insurance it is really cheap and without insurance it would probably still be much cheaper than anything in the US.
I wish I lived in a civilized country.
This is the exact set up for a Black Plague event. I know people tend to hold a grudge over the Covid Lockdown, but do we really need to see bodies topple on the street before realisation is made?
This makes every zombie movie way more realistic than it has any right to be.
People have alway been stupid.
100 years ago during the spanish flu we had the exact same shit we had today. idiots spewing pseudoscience, idiots saying its just a cold, idiots saying masks are worse for your health than a “minor” infection, etc etc.
and I imagine you’d run into the same kind of sentiments no matter how far you go back in history.
Because people are stupid. People are myopic.
Individuals may be empathic and genuinely care and do everything they can, but the majority are just mouth breathing plague carrying idiots whose greatest achievement in life is not drowning in the rain.
A zombie movie realized would be so stupid…it sucks we’re in the stupid timeline. ._.
I just spent 5grand out of pocket because the doctor made me take a sleep test. They charged insurance nearly 20 grand.
They told me they found nothing and I was fine. I pointed out some flaws in their test but they weren’t interested in my opinion.
I cancelled my follow up appointment bc I can’t afford it, at least until this is paid off.
Also, I am not fine. I am very very tired.
Did you know if you meet your deductible they will won’t pay until you also meet the Out of Pocket Maximum? What’s the point of the deductible? I have no idea.
If your deductible is $50 or 20% then you pay that, until you accumulate enough to hit the out of pocket max, then you pay nothing.
Deductible is supposed to be the amount you pay 100% for, followed by a pre agreed percentage until your out of pocket maximum where you pay nothing
You are right. I am learning this the hard way. Not that I have any say in my own health insurance anyway.
not surprised. i want to eventually try a biologic for my condition, and you know how most insurance will try to give you the run around, or a long list of requirments. also its expensive as well.
Damn. $20k! The at home sleep test wouldn’t suffice?
No, they made me take the home test in Independence Day. That’s a hard day for my dogs. I didn’t sleep well either.
I scored 1 point over the line for Sleep Apnea.
The leadership of US medical of the last 25 years should be prosecuted, have their wealth taken from them, and their kin removed with them on a biblical scale.
The removal method? Guillotine
