As a former emergency room physician, one of the saddest scenarios I encountered was patients coming in with crises that could have been prevented with routine medical care. It wasn’t uncommon to have patients with diabetes come in because they’d had to ration their insulin, or patients with other manageable conditions entering in crisis simply because they couldn’t afford the medication they’d been prescribed.
These situations aren’t unique — my husband, an internist, regularly recommends diagnostic tests for his patients, which they sometimes must refuse, just because they’re concerned about large hospital bills. It’s no secret that we’re facing a health care affordability crisis.
