Tuesday, February 28, 2012
1 in 5 older Americans scrimp on health care to save money
I thought this was a very interesting article but at the same time I found it to be very tragic. In recent statistics, twenty percent of Americans over the age of fifty have switched to cheaper prescriptions rather than taking the medications they are recommended to take. Also, more citizens of this age are choosing to skip out on doctor visits and all of this can be credited to the current high health care costs that we have in the United States. An even staggering percentage was that nearly one in five persons over the age of fifty either skipped or postponed a visit to the doctor to save their money. Still, others who have taken the route of taking generic drugs or even sticking to free samples to take care of their bodies rather than prescribed medicines. Those who reported they were doing these cutbacks also said they would often take half of the pill or reduce the dosage to make them last longer. This is very scary to see that people are jeopardizing their own health just to save a little extra cash but at the same time this tells us just how much this Great Recession has impacted our everyday lives and financial situations.
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3 comments:
It will be interesting to see how this begins to change as more and more of the baby boomers begin to age, and hit the 65 year point. Social security, one of the largest expenditures of the government right now will begin to cover a larger portion of the population, as well as medicare and medicaid being a huge issue in the political and economical debate.
I think the situation is not only resulted from individual people. The weak and expensive health system could be the main reason. People choose to distrust it because they know that even they put so much money in it, they will not be treated well as they hope.
Also, I feel like the now depressing economic recession, and change of people's mind towards life when getting old, could be part of the reason too.
This pattern of skimping on health care to save money is a common theme in developing countries. Often HIV patients will have to decide whether to purchase their medication or food. Problems arise when drug resistant strains of diseases begin developing because the medications aren't used effectively. The fact that people have to skimp on these costs demonstrate the extent of the recession and the toll it is taking on people's daily lives.
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