Take, for example, a woman’s medical journey with Type 2 diabetes. We’ll call her Pam.

Pam begins exhibiting diabetic symptoms as a teenager, but her parents do not have her covered on their insurance or have access to health payment plans after the 2019 repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, so they avoid the doctor except in emergencies.
In her twenties, Pam is at work one day and passes out, and paramedics take her to the ER. A doctor diagnoses her with advanced Type 2 diabetes and prescribes medication. Pam takes her diagnosis seriously and decides to change her diet, but she feels that the medication schedule and cost will incur debt. So, she is inconsistent with her treatment.
A year later, Pam goes back to the doctor with a wound on her foot that hasn’t healed in over a month. Her doctor tells her the unhealed wound is a result of her worsening diabetes and that it will require surgery, and he urges her to take her medication.
Pam finally gets her medications, but due to the additional financial strain, she attempts to treat her foot wound with an over-the-counter antibiotic cream and chooses not to schedule surgery. A month later, Pam is back at the doctor with an infection and rushed to surgery, put on an antibiotic IV and is required to use a wound vacuum for a month.

This story could go on, but I think you get the idea. Pam kept falling down these care cliffs, because she did not see a way to afford and receive fulsome care when it was needed. How might things have differed if she had simply been diagnosed in her youth, and subsequently taken her medications to avoid a now chronic illness?

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