Health-Care Savings Series: 10 ways to save without cutting care

While nobody wants to cut back on medical care, the sorry state of the economy has forced many to do just that. Fast-growing health costs, slow wage growth, and ever-skimpier insurance coverage have conspired to put health care out of reach even for many people who have some kind of health plan.

• Twenty-two percent of the 686 consumers surveyed in a July 2008 poll by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners said that they were going to their doctor less frequently due to economic factors, and 11 percent said that they were cutting back on their medications to help make ends meet.
• Our own survey from May 2007 found that 22 percent of respondents had skipped medications or treatments, 17 percent had an illness get worse because it wasn’t treated immediately, and 49 percent said they were somewhat to completely unprepared to cope with a costly medical emergency.

While health care reform may be on the way, it would take time to be enacted (see our comparison of the plans from each of the presidential candidates).

In the meantime we'll be blogging every weekday for the next two weeks on ways you can save on the health care you need. We're calling it our Health-Care Savings Series. We encourage you to use the comments section to share other ways you've found to save, or to report costly problems that you just haven't been able to solve.

—Kevin McCarthy, associate editor

Comments

[Denise Gugliuzza]

My dad has medicare. I was wondering if there is any other kind of plan that would help him save money on prescriptions? Thanks