By Ashe Clark ’25
On average, 8 in 10 people are in debt. The average debt in America is $38,000. Most debt comes from medical and veterinary bills (“American Debt Statistics [ Updated March 2021] Shift Processing”). At least doctors can’t deny treatment! They’ll just put you in debt for the rest of your life. However, veterinarians can completely deny treating an animal if they have no proof of a way to pay. If we don’t resolve the medical bill prices in America, more and more people will be in debt and won’t get health care unless it’s urgent.
We are paying for many different things in our medical bills. Some make sense like: tests, the doctor’s time and experience, and medication (Vineet Arora et al.). Then there are the things we shouldn’t have to worry about paying for like asking questions, and even labeling medication correctly (King). According to “6 Reasons Healthcare Is So Expensive,” “As salaries for American workers have risen, net pay has remained the same due to the increasing cost of health insurance.”
We need lower medical bill prices and medical and veterinary insurance. When we go to the doctor, we shouldn’t worry about going bankrupt. We should only worry about our health or the health of our pets.
Even insurance costs a lot; it’s hard to afford for most people. On average, the cheapest health insurance costs about $328 per month (Guinan). Because of this, people don’t pay their insurance and that’s also part of the problem.
A huge issue is veterinarians and doctors overcharging for care. According to “Do Vets Overcharge,” some veterinarians overcharge because they have debts themselves. Veterinarians even higher prices for medicine. “According to recent studies, vets often markup the price of prescription drugs when you directly purchase them from their veterinary clinics” (Guinan)
What’s even worse is doctors change the procedures on your medical records. (“5 Tricks Hospitals Use To Overcharge and What You Can Do About It”). According to “5 Tricks Hospitals Use To Overcharge and What You Can Do About It,” “Upcoding is the practice of replacing one procedure with another, more complex one on your bill in order to charge higher rates.” The U.S. cost to run tests and get results are on average way higher than other countries. Some countries have free healthcare and the tests don’t cost anything. For example, according to 6 Reasons Healthcare Is So Expensive, in Canada CT scans cost $97, and in the U.S. they cost, on average, $896.
This is not just a medical system problem. The U.S. uses 8% of its healthcare on administrative costs (Boyle). In the JAMA study on average 10 other countries only used 1-3% of their healthcare budget.
Medical and veterinary bills should be more affordable for everyone because healthcare is a right. It shouldn’t put people in debt for life. There are solutions like free healthcare. We all already know there are places that have free healthcare, like Canada or Switzerland. On average countries with free healthcare have a higher life expectancy and a lower mortality rate. According to Michael Boyle, “Hospitals, doctors, and nurses, all charge more in the U.S. than in other countries, with hospital costs increasing much faster than professional salaries” (Boyle).
Imagine you need surgery, but you can not afford it. They tell you, “Without proof of payment, you can not get it done.” This means doctors can’t do anything for you unless you can pay or it’s lethal. If it’s lethal, you will still have to pay even if you can’t afford it. You could also imagine your pet has parasites from before you got it. Your pet care insurance would not cover it. According to “How to Negotiate With a Veterinarian,” pet care insurance does not provide coverage for preexisting conditions. It doesn’t matter if you get your pet and insurance simultaneously!
The main question is “How do we lower the medical bill prices in America?” It may seem like solving healthcare debt is an issue just for the government. People assume that, over time, the government may fix it. They might even expect the government to pass a bill to lower the costs or make them more even for everyone because according to “6 Reasons Healthcare Is So Expensive,” “The amount paid for the same healthcare service can vary significantly depending on the payer (i.e. private insurance or government programs, such as Medicare or Medicaid) and geographical area.”
The solution is that the government passes bills that the public shows the most interest in. We can work towards a solution if we start a manual petition, go door to door, or make websites for lower medical costs. Vote for the people who care about what you care about and we can fix debt in America together.
The Raider Press 