A record number of US citizens announced the forced refusal of medical services in 2021 due to their high cost. This is evidenced by the data of the December poll.
Doctors as kind of a luxury
For this reason, 25 percent of the respondents or their relatives were forced to refuse to seek medical help in the event of a serious illness. Another 8 percent of those surveyed said that even in less acute health situations, they were unable to pay for medical services.
As evidenced by the recent study, more and more Americans have to take out payday loans to cover expensive medical treatment. Such loans have become very popular due to easy-to-meet borrower requirements, fast online application and immediate funding. Eligibility criteria vary by state. For instance, to get approved for Texas payday loans no credit check, you must be at least 18 years old, have a source of income, and provide some kind of identity verification.
Thus, for the first time, more than a third of US residents – 33 percent – are saving on medicine in one way or another. It is noteworthy that in 2015 there were only 19 percent of them. Accordingly, the number of American citizens limiting themselves in one way or another in terms of health care has grown by almost 50 percent over the past years, the authors of the sociological study indicate.
Doctors in the United States recognize that the cost of caring for their health is becoming prohibitive.
At the same time, the least financially secure Americans with incomes below 40 thousand dollars a year are in the worst situation – 36 percent of such families cannot afford to pay medical bills and refuse to visit doctors.
It is specified that the research methodology consisted of phone calls to more than 1,000 respondents living throughout the United States.
Recall that the reform of the healthcare system, initiated by the previous US President Barack Obama in 2009, from the very beginning faced strong resistance from Republicans on Capitol Hill. Nevertheless, relying on the Congress controlled at that time by the US Democratic Party, in 2010 Obama was able to “push” the main provisions of this reform through legislators, mainly expanding its accessibility to low-income Americans. The current US President Joe Biden has repeatedly called his predecessor’s reforms “unconstitutional”, the reform itself “a disaster” ). Over the past three years, a number of key provisions of this law have been disavowed or significantly changed.