[liber8]

Honest, non-snarky question for you: How is it that you could not afford a half-dozen trips to your doctor, but you could afford your medical insurance premiums? Are your premiums subsidized or free? Is the doctor terribly expensive?

(I'm assuming that your doctor charges $250 or less per visit. Six visits would cost $1,500. I'm assuming those visits were spread over at least a number of months, so you could see whether each medication was effective. I'll also assume your health insurance is at least $400/month, though that number is likely higher if you're over 30 or female. This means your six visits cost roughly four months worth of insurance premiums.)

[beat]

Honest, non-snarky answer... to be pedantic, for me it's not a question of affordability. I'm a software professional with a very good income, and I could do it on my own.

I have a friend a few months younger than me. She makes less than $15k/year, and has two children living at home. Under those financial circumstances, she has totally paid off her home, which should tell you how frugal and responsible she is. She has also experienced extensive hospitalization due to illness. If she had to pay for that (it was paid for by state-subsidized health care), she'd have lost her house.

edit: Medical costs are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US.

[hga]

"Medical costs are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US."

In a study by Elizabeth Warren that scored any bankruptcy which included medical bills in the discharged debts as their "being the cause" of it, no matter what the fraction they were.

[mikeyouse]

That's dramatically misrepresenting the quality of the study;

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/...

[hga]

That may be so, but your link doesn't support your counter-claim.

[jdminhbg]

> Without insurance, I couldn't have afforded the half-dozen trips to the doctor or the meds.

> Honest, non-snarky answer... to be pedantic, for me it's not a question of affordability.

This is a pretty good representation of the quality of health care discussion on HN.

[jrockway]

He misspelled one word. s/couldn't/mightn't/.

[ansible]

I'm assuming that your doctor charges $250 or less per visit.

Well, that just a visit. What about lab tests? Doctor offices can do some basic stuff in-house, but for anything interesting, it has to be sent to an external lab. Depending on the tests, that could be $500 USD a pop, easy.

And the medication is expensive too. That drug may be costing the patient $15 per refill, but it definitely costs more than that in total.