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Employee Benefit Research Institute
According the study, 21.5 percent of 50+ households made prescription drug changes, 19.4 percent skipped doctor appointments and 27.5 percent had difficulty making monthly payments.
If you’ve ever thought twice about going to the doctor or taking a pill because of the cost, you likely aren’t alone.
About 20 percent of Americans over the age of 50 are switching to cheaper prescriptions, failing to take the medicine they are supposed to or skipping trips to the doctor to save money, according to a new research from a Washington-based think tank.
It's the latest example of how high health care costs are forcing some Americans to choose between financial and physical health.
The Employee Benefit Research Institute used a comprehensive 2009 survey of 4,433 Americans 50 and over to get a sense of how many older people couldn’t afford to get the health care that was recommended to them.
The survey found that 19 percent said they had skipped or postponed a doctor’s appointment to save money, while 21.5 percent said they had made prescription drug changes to save money.
The most common approach was the least worrisome: Many said they switched to cheaper generic drugs or used free samples.
But about one-quarter of those who made prescription drug changes said they’d stopped taking one or more pills. About one-fourth also said they’d split pills or taken a reduced dosage to make the medications last longer.
Skipping an occasional pill or doctor’s appointment might not affect you much, as long as you are generally in good health. But the researchers found that the people who were most likely to skimp on health care were also the ones who reported they were in poor health.
Single women and African-Americans were the most likely to report making such changes to save money.
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I'm a widow and two years away from Medicare, my employer does not offer health care insurance and I've priced it on my own, it would be a choice between my home or health insurance that's how high the premiums are for someone my age, and that's with a ten thousand dollar deductable. I work for a Medical clinic so fortunately for me one of the Dr's give me my scrips for HBP and my Thyroid meds, I haven't had a mamogram in five years and won't be having one until I get medicare. This is the situation out here for us older folks, I will most likely be working well into my seventies, but that's what I have to do.
Amazing that a medical clinic would not offer health insurance to their employees. They sound like hypocrites who state that everyone else should have access to care with low costs, but they don't offer it themselves.
Do as I say and not as I do, huh?
It's true that medical care today has disintegrated into a sick, pathetic system. Thirty years ago I worked in a medical office, when doctors cared about their patients and it wasn't all business. My recent interaction with a large medical provider was the most insulting, degrading thing I have ever had to endure, and I decided right then I would not be part of that. I do have decent insurance now, but I don't believe in a million tests, drugs, etc., so I rarely use it. I do research, find my own solutions to health problems, and wonder what will happen if I lose my job and don't have any options at all? We are all at the mercy of these thugs in office, and in my opinion they all need to take a one way trip to the moon and never return!
The need for defensive medicine has removed the ability to really care about one's patients. It's also hard to show you care from across the room, but you can't get any closer because patients will sue if you look at them the 'wrong way'.
I'm interested in what research you are doing? Or do you mean "research" as in you went to WebMD and Wikipedia? I hate how people misuse the word research. Just because you Googled it does not mean you researched it. It means you familiarized yourself with it.
I work for the largest (sometimes) corp in the world who just ended real healthcare coverage for an 80/20 plan that has such high deductibles you will always pay 100% most years. I have arthritis in a knee and have to try to make it to 65 (two years to go!) for treatment. I'm glad I get to avoid the O'Bamacare private insurance debacle...they will collect premiums and deny claims like they do now only with the Gov blessing and as with any "NATIONALIZATION" of anything...you can't vote with your feet although I do get to leave Minnesota's high taxes which only supports their overblown/overpaid public sector...
Maybe part of the issue with your 3M plan (I'm assuming) is that many of the retirees (my neighbors, as an example) retire when they are 55 and get large pensions.
Nope...our most recent meeting showed that sales and revenues are way down however profits are up! Hoooray!! Frozen pay...reduced health benefits and this year (drum roll...) they ended defined retirement plans for ALL new hires after 100 years of providing that...this is the "recovery" in manufacturing that MPR/NPR types cheer about...it's a delusion...there is no recovery of the economy going on. Retire at 55? My company? I think only public sector can do that (and does and expects me to continue paying for it...nope!) and my mistake...you are correct...they are the largest employer in Minnesota...the public sector union thug types. They're #1 and their profits are up ha ha ha
I get really tired of people saying they don't have access to affordable healthcare.
http://www.hrsa.gov/ourstories/healthcenter/index.html
Do you know WHY they are scrimpimg on medicine? THEY CAN NOT AFFORD THE MEDICINE.
The article is about older Americans. I would expect the proportion of other Americans skimping on medications is even higher, at least older Americans have Medicare. So many of us have no insurance, or very inadequate insurance.
As much as I hate the thought of anyone, especially an elderly person, dying, I wonder what affect their non-compliance will have on healthcare costs for the nation? I also wonder how many of them are writing up a DNR. I just signed mine to do my part to try to keep healthcare industry costs down.
Less compliance= more death. More death = less people in nursing homes/long-term care facilities. Less people in facilities = lowered costs for those facilities. More DNRs= less funds and manpower spent trying to save someone/keep them alive after resucssitation.
Is this a surprise? Skipping health care due to cost is nothing new, nor is it just for the 50+ group. After my birth, I never saw a doctor again until I was 33, despite the fact that I'd had my foot runover by a truck (in mud thank goodness), stepped on hard by a horse (which probably cracked a joint) and had a serious female issue. I grew up as a child of Depression era parents. If you can't pay for it, you don't do it. It's a harsh reality. My mom's infant brother was allowed to die of what was then called "summer complaint" because they could not afford to send for the doctor. That was life back then.
My mother never saw a doctor from the time I was born until she got on Medicare. My father saw a doctor when he was in the army in 1942, then again when he got Medicare in 1979.
Both lived to be 80. My father chose to die rather than follow doctors orders about diet and to take the prescriptions. His decision... and the older I get the more I understand.... What's the point? We all have to die at some time and mostly medicine is not giving us a better old age, it's giving us a longer old age... a longer, more costly decline, during which more and more money is going to the medical-pharmaceutical industry.