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A shocking 92 percent of US adults are not going to the doctor because it’s too expensive (www.independent.co.uk)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/news@lemmy.world
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Some 92 percent have delayed or abandoned medical care because of costs, according to a survey of 1,507 U.S.adults by financial services firm JG Wentworth.

High prices at the doctor’s office, urgent care, emergency room and more have led to 85 percent of Americans having medical debt. Collectively, American consumers have $220 billion in medical debt, according to a February poll from KFF - that’s around $958.61 per adult with medical debt.

Nearly one in five adults said their health got worse because they skipped a doctor’s visit. That problem is more acute for those 64 and younger - 42 percent say their health got worse after putting off a medical visit.

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[–] 3 points 5 hours ago (1 child)

Every report like this uses a small sample size to represent the entire population. Do you think they're surveying 400 million people?

The question is, how did they get these 1500 people, and can it be repeated? If so, then the data is valid.

But basically, a lot hangs on how random their sample size was. Did they stick to one area? Did they stick to one age group, sex, etc. All in all, if the sample group is random, 1500 people is a valid measure for this data.

After this, there needs to be peer review. Other institutions need to be able to repeat the results with their own random groups.

But, 1500 is a great sample size. Just need to make sure it's random and repeatable.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 hours ago

    I fully agree that 1,500 people is a perfectly reasonable sample size for getting a useful picture of what may be happening in a much larger population. I have no argument with the methodology on that point.

    My primary issue is with the title itself, which literally says that 92% of people aren’t going to the doctor. That is not what the underlying data actually establishes.

    I understand that websites, news aggregators, and media outlets need compelling headlines to get people to click, read, and interact with advertisements. But there is a line between making a headline attention-grabbing and deliberately phrasing it in a way that creates a completely misleading impression of what the study actually found.

    If the headline requires the reader to read the entire article before discovering that the statistic means something substantially different from what the headline plainly implies, then the headline is, for all practical purposes, misinformation. That may generate clicks, but it comes at the expense of accuracy and public trust.

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