It is ironic that after my last post the first article I looked at is this one from America Blog and MSNBC that details how more Americans are foregoing or delaying medical care due their inability to bear the cost. In my own case, I stopped therapy and anti-depression medication mostly because I could no longer afford the monthly cost involved given my firm's significant decline in revenue due to the collapse of the real estate market and slow down in business expansion. Here are some highlights from the MSNBC story:*
WASHINGTON - Twenty percent of Americans say they have delayed or postponed medical care, mostly doctor visits, and many said cost was the main reason, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters released on Monday. That figure is up since 2006 . . .
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"The results of this survey have serious implications for public health officials, hospital administrators, and healthcare consumers," Gary Pickens of the Healthcare division of Thomson Reuters, who led the study, said in a statement. "We are seeing a positive correlation between Americans losing their access to employer-sponsored health insurance and deferral of healthcare."
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In the most recent survey, 21 percent of U.S. adults expected to have difficulty paying for health insurance or healthcare services in the next three months. Pickens added that "if this trend continues, it will ultimately have an impact on our collective well-being." Thomson Reuters Healthcare is part of the same company as the Reuters news agency.
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Despite such data, far too many in the GOP maintain that the USA's health care system "is the best in the world." That may be true for the wealthy and those with deluxe health insurance plans but for more and more of us we are headed towards health care catastrophe. As noted by America Blog, it all "comes back to the critical issue of a national system that benefits the general population and not only the wealthy, doctors, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies."
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