Some 92 percent have delayed or abandoned medical care because of costs, according to a survey of 1,507 U.S.adults by financial services firm JG Wentworth.
High prices at the doctor’s office, urgent care, emergency room and more have led to 85 percent of Americans having medical debt. Collectively, American consumers have $220 billion in medical debt, according to a February poll from KFF - that’s around $958.61 per adult with medical debt.
Nearly one in five adults said their health got worse because they skipped a doctor’s visit. That problem is more acute for those 64 and younger - 42 percent say their health got worse after putting off a medical visit.
Its too expensive and most of the time you don’t get any help.
The last few times I have gone to a doctor, its basically been shrugged shoulders and a bunch of surprise bills for the next few months.
most of the time you don’t get any help.
That hasn’t been my experience at all. Actually getting in to see a doctor has been a big deal for me, personally, over the last few years.
Just last month, I had a really painful chronic cough going on weeks. Went in, got diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia, handed a prescription for antibiotics, and was feeling significantly better within hours after taking it.
A year before that, had a days long debilitating back spasm. Dragged myself to an urgent care, got an injection and some oral anti-inflammatories, and was back on my feet before the end of the week.
My son was born premature, two years ago. The NICU in Houston took him from death’s door to on track for normal development over an intensive 18 weeks of care.
Mother-in-law got diagnosed with breast cancer six months ago. Was in treatment inside two weeks. Surgery at MD Anderson. Pronounced cancer clear a month later.
And then there’s COVID. At least three different instances where a visit to the doctor radically improved the condition of myself and my family.
Health Care in this country is borderline miraculous when you can actually get it.
But then the bills come rolling in, and it feels significantly less magical.
I have health insurance through work and I stopped visiting the doctor because I never get any help. It’s like pulling teeth to get a medication I want and any concerns I have are dismissed entirely. If not for the fact it pays for emergency care I wouldn’t have it at all. If I get a serious injury I would absolutely need it, but for the past few years all it’s done is decrease my income.
“Shocking”
Fuck you. Literally everyone in the US absolutely makes this decision for themselves and their families regularly. It isn’t “shocking”. It is the reality we’re all dealing with.
What would be shocking is if anyone in charge gave a fuck about the people instead of their donors and moved to do something about it.
I donno. I spend $750,000 minimum a year and I’ve never seen a bill. I have stage 5 kidney failure and go to dialysis 3 days a week. I have United (private) Medicare and Medicaid. My United is $750/mo but I don’t have to pay it.
I know it’s easy to shit on America and it’s the thing to do currently, but when you cherry pick the worst situations, sure it looks like shit. I could say the same in universal insurance countries. There are people there waiting 2-3 years for a MRI or are left in gurney in the halls for days before being looked at. Does that mean that’s the norm? No
Just saying, if you want to be ignorant for your nerarive then that’s cool, do you no hate. But that doesn’t mean it’s true regardless of your opinion.
I know it’s easy to shit on America and it’s the thing to do currently, but when you cherry pick the worst situations, sure it looks like shit.
Americans, per capita, pay far more for healthcare than any other country, and have a much lower life expectancy than peer countries. By any metric we are getting a shitty deal, far worse than any other country. You cannot “both sides” this one. Privatized healthcare is an abject failure that should be abandoned as quickly as possible.
This isn’t me shitting on America, this is me realistically describing what is currently going on in America.
lol. your self example is the case of universal insurance in the us. medicare with medicaid. and the limited example where you don’t have to work 20 hours a week to get the medicaid. talk about cherry picking.
You’re a fucking idiot and a prick
You literally do not see that you are benefiting from universal healthcare? Medicaid is paying that 750 a month and the rest is covered by Medicare. I go to the VA. Universal healthcare for veterans. When I turn 65 next year I will have 3 insurance plans. VA, Medicare, and my state plan that I pay 75 a month for. Two of those will be universal healthcare. How do you not see you are benefiting from a public health plan?
“I’m getting care so everyone else can suffer and die”
People waiting years on lists and days on gurneys should complain about their countries system, and they do. You see it in every wealthy country.
Your good experience is not an argument that the system is fine. Neither is mine.
The fact remains that many, many people cannot, access care, or are financially ruined when they do.
I just (last year) got a fantastic new job with great pay and benefits. Which means I am only responsible for the first 5000. It’s been 12 years since I have seen a doctor. I’m in one of the worst health care states in the union. Just lucky so far. This is the state of healthcare in the usa.
I’ve had “good” insurance for almost a decade now, but I could never find a doctor that was in-network, taking new patients, and less than 50 miles away. I was calling around locally every three months, like clockwork, for years.
I finally got lucky this week, so I’ve got an appointment in October. The receptionist asked me when my last physical was, and I said 2004. She said, “Oh, so not in the last year then?”
This is by design. The government wants this for us.
Insurers want this for us. It’s like a subscription fee you’ve forgotten about or a gym membership you keep telling yourself you’ll start using again. The existing establishment wants their lobby money to keep flowing. Bringing in new leaders who actually care about the people should be the voters goal. I think we’re waking up as a populace but we’ve got everything working against us. We just needed the world to literally burn around us to give a shit tho.
Edit: stats they aren’t even paying a lot of money to accomplish their goal.
Rich people want everyone else to get shut out of medical care so they are doctors’ only priority. That’s one facet of the permanent underclass they hope for.
planet fitness model, they encourage people to pay, but not to use the gym facilities.
Slaves are easy to control when they are afraid. Afraid to get sick, afraid to get help, because they are afraid to go in debt.
A lot of people say the world is three meals away from revolution, but in reality it’s three meals away from selling their own mother for a can of dog food.
Isn’t it more specifically three missed meals?
If only I had three straight meals I’d get all revolutionary.
One has to wonder if it is a type of depopulation thing.
I only go to the doctor once a year, and only because they hold my prescriptions hostage until I comply.
Its 250 dollars for 15 minutes of asking how I was doing and if I had any issues, before sending in my refills.
I have an ongoing issue thats causing me physical disability and probable permanent damage, my doctor told me to go to a specialist.
I called 10 specialists, 9 refused to accept an uninsured/self pay patient. the other one was willing to see an uninsured/self pay patient… but only if I paid a 800 new patient fee, in addition to the regular office visit cost.
This is why I dont go to the doctor.
How is this shocking
I didn’t expect it to be this high, because I remember the debates around Obamacare. People would say “but I like my insurance”, and I don’t know if there has been a massive change since then, or if people are holding these contradictory ideas in their heads.
There is definitely a section that can’t afford to use their insurance and also is terrified they will lose it.
I went to urgent care, waited for 20 - 30 minutes, they called back to the back room, spent 10 minutes in the back before they said they couldn’t help me. Go to a specialist. $275 bill
Just read the stories about how things were in Britain when the National Health Service was created.
One of the things which was pretty common before the NHS was created was this kind of thing - most people would only ever go to the doctor when they were already very sick for a while and their health just kept getting worse.
After the National Health Service was created overall healthcare costs actually went down because people were actually going to the doctor much earlier and less sick, plus under Universal Healthcare “Preventive Medicine” makes sense even just from an economic point of view because it reduces the costs of the whole system.
This is true, better health and lower costs, but all the proof in the world won’t change the maga team to support it. Some of them have what they think is “good insurance” and think they’re special and don’t want it for all. Lots of selfishness rather than raise all boats, it’s part of the cowboy lore they like to pretend they are lol.
The core value of both MAGA politicians and MAGA supporters is “what’s in it for me”, not what’s better for people in general.
In fact, the same applies to most Democrat politicians and possibly even most Democrat supporters.
Selfish Individualism is kinda the thing which is extra extra in the US compared to, say, Europe were there either a large minority or maybe even a majority still hold at least some pro-social principles
I wonder if these adults will start voting for people interested in socialized medicine?
Rolls around in free checkups, hospital visits, and cheap medications.
No, you wouldn’t want this. It’s awful! Your GDP couldn’t possibly afford it.
If the crash that many are predicting is actually coming, we might not be able to afford it for a while, until we actually get corps and the rich to put into society again
Socialised healthcare is actually cheaper than non socialised healthcare
Yes we know. So everyone needs to stop voting for people who take bribes to prevent us from getting it
The problem is that our political system… what remains of it at this point… is rigged to represent the dumbest 1/3rd of the population with roughly 3/5th of the effective governmental lawmaking power.
Not the trump voters. N
If it’s still possible for voting to work, we have to get rid of all the establishment corpo-critters, the ones taking money from AIPAC, etc. Many leftist social dems are winning primaries, get them in office this November and maybe we can stem the tide. Maybe.
Just like Biden was interested in $15 an hour?
Just like Trump was interested in no wars?
(it doesn’t matter what they say they are interested in. Don’t be a sucker)
Anytime Biden tried to do anything good for people like cancel student loans, he’s been blocked by Republicans at every turn.
As was the plan all along for an establishment ghoul
You think the Biden administration fought for it all the way to the Supreme(-ly Corrupt) Court, hoping it would be struck down? Really, you think this was the intended plan?
Biden was the senator who authored, sponsored, and loudly endorsed the 2005 BAPCPA legislation, which prevents student loan borrowers from declaring bankruptcy over their crushing debt. Hot on the heels of GWB removing the tuition increase caps for state universities. Senator Biden of Delaware was literally “their guy” - meaning the student loan lenders and accompanying financial institutions.
So no, he was doing his job by ensuring the debt forgiveness did not succeed. Or if it did, that 95% of recipients would be means tested out of it. This complements his job as a centrist corporate ghoul - to trick people into believing the democrats would do something to meaningfully improve their lives, if only those pesky republicans would let them.
Or, you know, in the 15 years between that and his administration he saw the data and changed his views. That is a thing people can do, you know?
Let us know when you change your view of the democrats intentions.
Bad take. Presidents can’t set the Federal Minimum Wage unilaterally, yet alone state level minimum wages.
Yep, the insurance companies want us dead. They are trying to thin our those who are “weak” when it was thier fault that we are physically weak in the first place. They just want to kill people as far as I can tell. Helping is secondary.
I had cancer 3 years ago. I will be paying off my treatment costs for the next 10 years, like I will be fully in remission for over 5 years from cancer and still paying off my treatment. So maybe that is why.
Yeah but we can’t change it because republicans love dying
They love other people dying. They’re just willing to guarantee their own death to make that a reality.
They’re just willing to guarantee their own death to make that a reality.
they don’t want those people to have affordable or ‘free’ health care, and they’re willing to die themselves to make sure they don’t ever get it.
The “92% of Americans aren’t going to the doctor because it’s too expensive” claim is misleading.
The 92% figure comes from a survey of just 1,507 U.S. adults conducted for financial-services company JG Wentworth. It reportedly found that 92% had delayed or abandoned some form of medical care because of cost. That is very different from saying that 92% of Americans don’t go to the doctor, or that only 8% of Americans “attend to their health.”
There is much better independent data showing that cost really is a major problem, but the numbers are nowhere near 92%. KFF’s 2025 national polling found that 36% of adults said they had skipped or postponed needed health care during the previous year because of cost. KFF also found that 37% of insured adults reported doing so, so having insurance clearly doesn’t eliminate the problem.
Even better, an analysis using National Health Interview Survey data, rather than a private company’s survey, found that about 17% of U.S. adults delayed or did not get health care because of cost in 2024.
So the underlying story is absolutely legitimate: healthcare costs are causing millions of Americans to delay or forgo care. But presenting a JG Wentworth survey’s 92% figure as though it means “only 8% of Americans seek medical care” is a pretty substantial distortion of what the survey actually measured.
The more defensible takeaway is: American healthcare is expensive enough that a significant minority of Americans are delaying needed care because they cannot afford it. That’s bad enough without turning the statistic into something it doesn’t actually say.
92% of the time I should go to the doctor I don’t because I can’t afford to.
The other 8% I’m unconscious or need to be literally put back together beyond what super glue and electrical tape can handle.
So you’re basically a 40k dreadnought. 😂
American healthcare is expensive enough that a significant minority of Americans are delaying needed care because they cannot afford it
Is this not too strong wording to the point where it may be downplaying it?
Would it be safer to say American healthcare is expensive enough that a significant number of Americans are delaying needed care because they cannot afford it?
Yes, that would also be true. I was just trying to be as concise as possible.
The problem with American healthcare isn’t simply that healthcare is expensive, or even that people aren’t receiving it. The deeper problem is that we’ve built healthcare into a predominantly profit-driven corporate system.
And to be clear, I don’t have a problem with people making money from medicine. There is absolutely nothing wrong with profiting from developing a revolutionary medical technology, discovering a new treatment, manufacturing equipment, or creating a drug that genuinely improves people’s lives. Innovation requires investment, and investment requires the possibility of a return.
The problem is what happens when the entire healthcare system is subjected to the same corporate incentives as every other industry: maximize revenue, minimize costs, consolidate market power, increase shareholder returns, and treat the patient as a revenue source.
Healthcare isn’t a normal consumer product. When you need a refrigerator, you can decide whether you want to buy one. When you’re having a heart attack, you don’t exactly have the luxury of shopping around for the best deal.
That’s where the fundamental problem lies. It’s not that healthcare is allowed to make money. It’s that we’ve allowed profit maximization to become one of the primary organizing principles of a system where the consumer often has virtually no ability to negotiate, comparison-shop, or simply walk away.
Yes, I agree, and I think it’s also bad how more money can equal better healthcare and better outcomes.
I just think calling it any kind of minority would be downplaying how common it is to delay needed healthcare, because of how expensive it is.
Thanks for the better numbers/articles.
Is the conclusion AI-written?
I use the built-in grammar editor on Google keyboard because I’m doing everything off my phone.
So that’s where you may be picking up on the AI generation thing.
But the words are mine.
deleted by creator
It’s a good thing you deleted that comment because it was a complete non sequitur.
Realized it. May the internet forgive me.
The shocking thing is the propaganda in the headline saying this is “shocking”.
Where is the call for violent overthrow of the regime?
Well, this is from a British newspaper and Britain has the National Health Service, so it makes sense that for them this is “shocking”.
Further, given the image that America has projected to the World in the last half-century, the news about Public Health in that country being basically what you see in the 3rd World would be “shocking” for those who believed that image of America.
I mean, plenty of people outside America still believe ridiculous shit like Americans being wealthy (most are not: the mean level of wealth of Americans is less than those of Portuguese, one of the poorest nations in the EU), their Military being very powerful (*cough* Iran *cough*) or the Justice System in the US being fair.
We are exhausting the same option over and over and over. I think its probably gonna happen the next time democrats run a hope and change candidate in 2108.
Where? 1/6/2021.
Oh, reasonable and justified calls. Sorry, no,all out those. We’ll be doing the 24th No Kings protest instead.
Shocking to nobody
Insurers love people who pay their work plan’s monthly premium without ever visiting a doctor. It’s free money!
