The American Public on Health Care-The Missing Perspective - (Page 30)

Anxiety About Cost Figure Q. Americans who have put off medical treatment in the past 12 months because they could not afford it Overall Insurance Status Insured Uninsured Age 18–39 40–64 65+ 26% 20% 58% 29% 28% 11% When Americans think about health care, they worry first and foremost about its cost. Finding ways to pay for health care is changing the way some Americans live. In San Francisco, a mother quits her job because lowering her income to qualify for state aid is the only way she can afford health care to treat her child’s brain tumor. In her community, some wonder, “Even though I have the health coverage, I cannot afford the $10 to go see the doctor for the co-pay,” she says. “I think it’s very poor because health care should not cost over fifty percent of your budget.” More than 1 in 4 Americans (26%) have put off some sort of medical treatment within the past year because they couldn’t pay for it, including 58% of those who are currently uninsured. Even those who currently have health insurance are feeling the crunch, with 20% reporting that they too have put off treatment. Just 11% of those over age 65 have put off treatment compared to 29% of those age 18-39 (see Figure Q). After her divorce, a middle-aged Miami nursing student loses her insurance coverage and cannot afford the most basic care. “I haven’t had a mammogram in like three years because I couldn’t do anything about it if I found out I had cancer.” And some, left uninsured by changing forces in the economy, wonder how his can be allowed to happen in an advanced society like the United States. Detroit, hit hard by job losses and benefits cuts in the auto industry, is home to many who feel abandoned by a system that now leaves them unable to afford basic care. While auto companies once offered such generous benefits that workers and retirees alike came to expect premium health care as a condition of employment, these long-term liabilities caught up with the industry, forcing them to make painful changes to a contract that workers viewed as a lifetime guarantee. Today, the Big Three automakers estimate that “Why should we have a society that forces a working mother with a child… to purposefully leave her job and go on welfare so that she can become eligible for health insurance?” For others, cost is the barrier to the most basic care. A mother of two who has insurance cannot afford to see a doctor because her monthly premiums eat up more than half of her income. 30

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