Photo by Brittney Lohmiller / For NPR
Douglas Harlow Brown, 80, of East Lansing, Mich., watches birds inside a medical rehab facility.
Photo by Bill Serne / For NPR
Marty Clear, 60, is a freelance writer based in Tampa, Fla. without health insurance. Last November, Clear went to an emergency room, and doctors discovered a cancerous tumor on his kidney. He's fine, but he says he'll never be able to pay off the resulting bills.
Photo by Tom Smart / NPR
Andrew Dasenbrock, 32, was sent to two separate health care facilities owned by the same network and had to submit to, and be billed for, the same tests twice because of their inability to communicate.
Photo by David Sanders / For NPR
Aimee Snyder, 28, had a blood clot in her leg that could have killed her. She's fine now, but she's had to pay more than $15,000 in medical bills so far.
Photo by Courtesy of Jacki Bronicki
Douglas Harlow Brown, 80, of East Lansing, Mich., with his daughter Jacki Bronicki. After Brown was hospitalized with broken ribs, Bronicki says, his doctors failed to communicate about his medication.
Originally published on Mon May 21, 2012 6:11 am
To get a feeling for what being sick in America is really like, and to help us understand the findings of our poll with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, NPR did a call-out on Facebook. We asked people to share their experiences of the health care system, and within 24 hours, we were flooded with close to 1,000 responses.
The stories were often lengthy and detailed. From Oregon to Florida and Maine to Mississippi, Facebook respondents told wrenching tales of bankruptcies, missed diagnoses, medical errors, miscommunication, and treatment that was delayed or foregone because of its cost.
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