A quarter of employers now offer only high-deductible insurance plans to their employees, and another quarter are thinking of following suit. The US is rapidly becoming a high out-of-pocket healthcare system, often with disastrous results. Consider what happened to Chris Howard after he saw the water in his toilet bowl turn bright red.
Howard (a pseudonym) figured it was probably from a hemorrhoid, but a colonoscopy test uncovered a Stage 3 cancer that had already begun invading the wall of his intestines. At the ripe young age of 38, Howard found himself face-to-face with a life-threatening illness.
In hope of shrinking the tumor prior to having it surgically removed, Howard’s oncologist prescribed a chemotherapeutic drug called Xeloda. Follow-up scans showed his tumor shrinking, but surgery revealed that the cancer had spread to Howard’s liver. He wasn’t cured; he was terminally ill. He wasn’t finished with treatments; he was only beginning.
Fighting back tears, Howard’s oncologist explained that they could slow down the cancer by going back on chemo. But Howard declined further treatment, explaining that the cost of his previous chemotherapy had already depleted his life savings.
