I can’t go into much detail, but I know a lot of people with medical problems who aren’t being seen by doctors in the US. Time and again I see people who have what I know to be fairly routinely urgent medical concerns that do get told by the ER that they have to wait for a specialist… 6+ months out. I’m sorry, but an infection doesn’t wait 6+ months for you to put them on some basic antibiotics that a PA or I think even some nurse practitioners can prescribe in certain jurisdictions.
I remember when I was in the military (circa 2008), I had a colleague who told me his mother died on the sidewalk outside an ER because they couldn’t afford any insurance and the hospital refused to see her. I didn’t believe it, I though that it couldn’t possibly be a thing in the US. But I keep seeing parallel issues time and again, but now it’s for basic things and not because of insurance, but providers and networks are so fucked up that people must be dying from these things.
I know someone who worked in billing and claims for medical insurance too. They share horror stories about double leg amputees being denied a wheelchair…
Hope I don’t get an infected cut or something, even with my decent insurance who the hell knows at this point!
For him, his anecdotal experience came from being treated for his colon cancer a decade ago. He was able to assemble the treatment rather quickly and travel to a good out of state hospital on his old insurance plan.
Another thing is that he really resents needing specialists as he gets older because of all the diagnostics they have to run every so often. He doesn’t exactly have a lot of free time from his schedule and he gets irked by the way an upper middle class doctor can just casually suggest something that he still has to pay for out his meager janitor wages. That and the fact they can’t really offer him any solution for the painful neuropathy that the chemo gave him.