Paying for health care is a struggle even for many Americans with health insurance, who say they are having trouble affording rising premiums, copayments and related costs.

More than half of working- age Americans are struggling to pay for health care, even if they have insurance. That's according to a recent survey, which found rising cost have caused nearly 40 percent of Americans to skip necessary treatments and medications. Four in ten Americans with employer sponsored plans or Medicaid have difficulty paying for health care. Three and four people without insurance say they can't afford to pay for their care.  I mean, it's no surprise. And in this country, people struggle to pay for health care. I think what many people who have good healthcare coverage will say is wow, there are people that are insured that can't pay for health care. 

Right, we're talking about Americans with insurance and while it is better to have health insurance than to not, they're saying that they're. It's inadequate and as a result they're avoiding care. They're delaying seeking treatment for medical conditions and as a result, they're getting sicker and poor and they're putting off treatment because there are costs like co-pa coinsurance deductibles that they simply can afford. So it's making Americans sicker and poorer. And so I guess. 

The question is sort of why right. I know that whys has insurance gone up recently? Is that what part of it is I know through after Covid, my insurance certainly went up and that was kind of the explanation that they gave like it just was so expensive during Covid. What's going on? We have a more complicated healthcare system in the US and in other countries like the UK for example, and. It's driven by prices that are set by providers and like hospitals and by pharmaceutical companies. The other thing that we're seeing happening is some employers with that provide their employees with employers-poonsored healthenss are narrowing their networks, which is exposing folks to more out ofpock expenses if they go out of network, for example, and that's driving up costs, i mean, it's something I consider if I have a deductible I have to meet, or if I have a cop-ayy, it's like, well, how badly do I need this? Yeah, so it's interesting because we reference other countries, the UK, for example. I lived for many years in France and I often wonder to myself my taxes were very high because France does have a socialized medical system. But I always enjoyed being able to go to the doctor and not have any exorbitant bills. But that being said. I was healthy and I wonder there are people in the UK. There are people in Canada. There are people in France who say. Look, if you are not healthy, even under this socialized system, it's better to be in the United States than it is in these other countries. I don't know. 

What kind of credence you lend to that argument? I'm not sure about that, but there are fixes. There are policies that there are changes we can make so that we can better ensure the population that can include subsidies for lower income folks. It can include charging less lowering the premiums based on an income scale. So folks who earn less because the study did show that people who make less have have a harder time and it it's eating into household budgets that can't afford rent payments, utilities. What about just lower treat price of treatments and drugs. For example, we talked about insulin before right insulin. The patent on that expired years ago should be a relatively cheap medication and yet ensure pharmaceutical companies charged exorbitant prices for it. Right. This probably speaks to the complexity of the system that we have that we have these insurance companies that negotiate with healthcare systems to determine the cost of, you know, an appendectomy. It may cost one thing for insurance company A and costs something way more expensive for insurance company B. 

Indeed, and so part and this is. The survey found that this is driving Americans into debt, they're accumulating medical debt, and the Biden administration has actually drafted new regulations that would prohibit medical debt from appearing on one's credit report because that's, you know, really hindering a lot of Americans. So there are fixes including those subsidies and legislation like this. 

That could begin to remedy the problem. You can see it being sort of a worsening cycle. Right, you don't go to cover kind of basic medical needs because you don't want to spend the money, you don't have the money, and then those balloon into a major medical crisis that afford that. You can't avoid. But you also can't afford. That's exactly right, and that's a problem that's unique to the US. Yeah, wow. I mean, it's so interesting. I didn't realize that there was legislation being proposed to not have medical debt appear on your credit history, and I guess that student loans would be another way to alleviate that. But I'm sure. On the flip side, the credit agencies and the companies who make money off of people are like It's just your bad spending habits that would end up on your credit. Not something that you got into because you were sick or because you had to pay for education right. 

Hey America: There Is A Better Way