Do you delay medical treatment?

Question

We have a different health care system in Canada, where if sick we call the doctor and the expense is paid by the government. How, is it where you live? If you must pay out of your own pocket do you delay medical care? What does a person do who has a serious stroke and must pay? Please share your experience.The reason I am asking is I have noticed many people ask questions about health care concerns that I feel they should just take to their doctors, but if they have to pay it may be a hardship.

Answer 1

Hi, I live in Ohio, near the lake, not far from Canada...
Alot of people in this country have an insurance system that involves partial private pay and premiums taken out of your paycheck, much like a tax off the top. Very few have fully paid medical care anymore; most have either an individual or family "co-pay," which means depending on the insurance plan, a person could pay $500 (US) or more before insurance starts picking up the bill. In the US we also have Medicare or Medicaid that picks up for people over a certain age (like Medicare) or for people who are disabled and/or destitute or meet certain financial criteria (i.e. Medicaid.) There is also help available for families who have disabled or handicapped children. Most people of retirement age and others that would meet the traditional risk categories for something like a stroke would probably qualify for this if they don't already have some insurance through their retirement benefits. Unfortunately for most of these plans criteria is usually set so that for others who could medically and financially benefit they "slip through the crack." I know from both personal experience as well as from others that if you have something that isn't very serious that you try to treat it yourself and avoid the high medical bill even if you have insurance. For those who are uninsured or underinsured and don't qualify, if they have a tragic accident or sudden illness, they go to the hospital and damn the consequences. Most people would go to save themselves or their families lives, and then either force the hospital to write it off as bad debt, or pay what they can when they can, or file bankruptcy...

Answer 2

In the USA, most people have some kind of medical insurance. The premiums are sometimes, in part, paid by their employeer. The insured usually pays some portion of the premium. Some people lose their insurance when they quit or get fired from their job, then they must get 100% private insurance. Depending on age and medical condition, this can be VERY expensive. I have a retired friend who is right around 60 years of age who pays over $1200/month because he has a history of stroke and heart attack!!!

Our medical system in the USA is screwed up. Greed is the major factor. The physicians, hospitals and insurance companies form a adverserial triangle of greed. Each charges very high rates and tries to screw the other two on the triangle. The government is the external factor. Over 65 years of age, people are covered, in part, through Medicare, and, if they have low/no income and/or assets, they may be eligible for Medicade.

There is a big disparity in the health care for the wealthy vs health care for the poor.

To change the system is no easy task. It is a constant source of debate in and out of government.

Sometimes people don't go to doctors out of fear of what the doctors will find. Sometimes they don't go because they can't be bothered.

Hope this helps!

Answer 3

There was a time when I was working and had inadequate health insurance. I worked for a small business that couldn't afford much in the way of benefits. They paid minimum wage. When I got a bad cough I bought cough syrup from the drug store. Two weeks later I had a high fever and was wheezing. I put it off. Eventually I went to the emergency room. I had pneumonia. I was out of work for 3 weeks for what I thought was a bad cold.

I couldn't afford the three weeks from work or the medical bills. I never paid them. Everyone who went to that hospital has paid for my portion of the bill through higher ER costs.

Answer 4

Cost is one part of it. But cost aside, I think there is a near universal tendency to want to deny health problems, hope they will go away, and most of all, to fear the worst. I have known people who died because they couldn't bring themselves to take cancer-like signs and symptoms to a doctor until it was so bad they were forced to. --And by then, it was too late.

I have decent insurance, thank God. But in the last year, I spent several days in the hospital because of a neglected condition that I just couldn't bring myself to have taken care of in a timely manner. I don't believe I am alone in this sort of situation.