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.
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.
“Shocking”
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
Shocking to nobody
Insurers love people who pay their work plan’s monthly premium without ever visiting a doctor. It’s free money!
Its why the invented copay!
“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 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, like I could afford a regular visit but I worked in healthcare and I’ve seen the bills people get hit with because things are coded wrong or denied by their insurance or whatever. I’m not rolling the dice on that unless something’s really wrong with me.
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.
Guys, did you know if you put water on something, it becomes wet?
Among those 92% there have to be people who vote Republican. Is it really more important for them “to own the libs” than having affordable/universal healthcare?
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. 😂
Every report like this uses a small sample size to represent the entire population. Do you think they’re surveying 400 million people?
The question is, how did they get these 1500 people, and can it be repeated? If so, then the data is valid.
But basically, a lot hangs on how random their sample size was. Did they stick to one area? Did they stick to one age group, sex, etc. All in all, if the sample group is random, 1500 people is a valid measure for this data.
After this, there needs to be peer review. Other institutions need to be able to repeat the results with their own random groups.
But, 1500 is a great sample size. Just need to make sure it’s random and repeatable.
I fully agree that 1,500 people is a perfectly reasonable sample size for getting a useful picture of what may be happening in a much larger population. I have no argument with the methodology on that point.
My primary issue is with the title itself, which literally says that 92% of people aren’t going to the doctor. That is not what the underlying data actually establishes.
I understand that websites, news aggregators, and media outlets need compelling headlines to get people to click, read, and interact with advertisements. But there is a line between making a headline attention-grabbing and deliberately phrasing it in a way that creates a completely misleading impression of what the study actually found.
If the headline requires the reader to read the entire article before discovering that the statistic means something substantially different from what the headline plainly implies, then the headline is, for all practical purposes, misinformation. That may generate clicks, but it comes at the expense of accuracy and public trust.
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.
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.
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.
financial services firm JG Wentworth.
I never considered that company a “financial services firm” - financial rip off firm is more like it.
Sad thing is, I can easily see this being true.
well yeah 64 and younger because you can get medicare at 65. of course that actually only pays 80%.
