Survey findings show lack of insurance, high-cost medicines have health impacts

- Andrea Germanos, staff writer at Common Dreams

Results from a survey out Tuesday are underscoring the repercussions lack of healthcare insurance and high drug costs have on adults in the US.

Results from a CDC survey show how cash-strapped adults in the U.S. are skipping doses or delaying refilling prescriptions of medicines. (Photo: Images Money/flickr)Outlining the findings from their 2011 National Health Interview Survey, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) state that many adults are skipping their prescribed medicine as a way to save money, but which the CDC says can lead to "poorer health status and increased emergency room use, hospitalizations, and cardiovascular events."

Other cost-saving measures included patients asking their doctor for a lower cost medication or buying the prescription medicine from out of the country.

Source: CDC/NCHS, National Health Interview Survey, 2011.

 

The CDC found that the uninsured (23.1%) were more likely than those with private coverage (8.7%) and those with Medicaid (13.6%) to not take medication as prescribed, as the following graph shows:

Source: CDC/NCHS, National Health Interview Survey, 2011.

 

Unsurprisingly, poverty was also a large factor in whether a patient took medicine as prescribed.

Among adults 18 - 64, 19.7% of those classified as poor did not take their medicine as prescribed in order to save money, compared to 9.6% of those in that age range classified as not poor.