Americans dying from poverty

In the last five years, 34 million Americans watched as someone they knew died because they couldn’t afford medical treatment

The new study by Gallup and the non-profit organization West Health  found that people making under $40,000 per year were more than twice as likely to know someone who has died due to inability to afford healthcare than were people making $100,000 or more per year.

It also found that over 20 percent of non-white U.S. adults know someone who has died due to unaffordable treatment compared to 9 percent of white adults, highlighting the stark racial inequities in U.S. healthcare.

Dan Witters, a research director at Gallup who worked on the new study explained:

 "The substantial number of Americans who know someone who has died after not receiving treatment because of their inability to pay for it, coupled with the rise in the percentage who have not had enough money to pay for their prescriptions, underscores the urgency of the U.S. healthcare cost crisis. These realities starkly highlight the significant practical implications of drug prices on U.S. residents, as well as the effects of healthcare policy action—or inaction."

Melinda St. Louis, director of Public Citizen's Medicare for All campaign, told Common Dreams that the results of the study are "heartbreaking but unsurprising."

"In the United States, we treat basic healthcare as a privilege based on your wealth, employment status, or zip code," said St. Louis. "These tragic consequences of our for-profit healthcare system are why a majority of Americans support Medicare for All, where everyone would have guaranteed access to the healthcare they need."

The law didn't stop U.S. healthcare providers and drugmakers from charging the highest prices in the world. In addition, a growing number of Americans who have private health insurance face high out-of-pocket costs, such as deductibles that require the insured to spend thousands of dollars out of pocket before coverage benefits kick in. Those are among the reasons why 45 percent of Americans were 'underinsured' last year, meaning patients are left responsible for a larger share of their medical expenses than they can afford.