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.
“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.
Who could have seen this happening?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Well, Trump says if Republicans win Midterms, he has $5000 to give every American Adult.
The problem is my doctor doesn’t accept trump coins
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 mean I’m working at a fortune 500 company and with my stupid high deductible plan even I don’t want to go unless it’s something that pretty urgent. I mean I already pay 10K+ a year for my family and then it’s another 10K to meet the deductible and every doctor’s appointment that’s not the annual checkup is two to three hundred dollars and urgent care is even more expensive so yeah, it’s basically unless there’s something absolutely wrong, it’s avoid the doctor and only go when things are basically unbearable even knowing I could afford to go.
US heathcare is a joke and unpopular opinion but the ACA, aka, Federal Romneycare, needs to be ripped out and actual universal healthcare needs to be enacted.
America complains about Canadians paying more taxes but I guarantee you I have never paid $10k a year in taxes that would just go towards our free healthcare.
Sure. That’s probably thanks to the progressive taxation. I’d probably fall under the higher tax brackets if I had an equivalent job in Canada and probably be paying at least 15K a year for healthcare there.
But you know what? I’d be more than happy to pay that for if it meant free at the point of use healthcare for everyone since I’ve gone from poverty to not having food insecurity and know what it’s like to not have any insurance.
That 10k he is paying is on top of taxes for Medicare and Medicaid.
We are already paying taxes to cover the old and the sickest, plus paying for our own care and the profits of the for-profit system.
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.
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.
Taxes on billionaires like Musk and Bezos could cover that.
Meanwhile I dont go to the doctor for free because Im too lazy…
Doesn’t sound all that shocking in a system that would rather you just die cheaply somewhere.
And then a good portion end up getting sick and dying earlier than they need to because of the stupid healthcare system America has. Also preventative treatment is a lot less expensive than treating something after it develops. But corporate America can’t make money off of doctors preventing illness or fixing things before it requires expensive surgery or medications.
Also annoying I got a bill from urgent care with a dude date of sept 26. I get texts or emails every few days. Bitch I see it’s due the 26th, I know how to pay my bills stop reminding me every 3 days.
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?”
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
And here I am going to the doctor the other day to have a lipoma removed.
I have like 3 dozen lipomas. They are so annoying.
I know. They are just so irritating and catch on stuff.
