ability to afford the ICU is not relevant at all when the docs decide to put someone there or not, based on my 14 years practicing in the US. Do you have any experience to the contrary? I’m pretty sure that would be illegal in the US
A very quick DDG search turns up stories from reputable outlets:
"Americans dying because they can't afford medical care"[1],
"66% of Americans fear they won’t be able to afford health care this year"[2],
"Nearly 46m Americans would be unable to afford quality healthcare in an emergency"[3],
"Nearly 1 in 4 Americans are skipping medical care because of the cost"[4],
and more are easily found. If this doesn't reflect people avoiding hospitals, or leaving early AMA, and thus reducing the number of pre-Medicare patients by some amount, I'd be very surprised.
That’s the patient choosing not to go to the doctor - how is that the ICU doctor’s responsibility? Are they meant to scour the streets looking for people who need intensive care?
