Dan Cowart sorts through a drawer of medical bills on the front porch of his home on Stringer’s Ridge in Chattanooga on Thursday as he talks about his health problems. The bills for doctors’ visits and medication to treat conditions such as congestive heart failure and gout, but since he was laid off in 2010 he has been unable to pay them.
Dan Cowart knows what it’s like to not be able to pay his medical bills or to skip his medication because he doesn’t have money for the prescriptions.
The 47-year-old rifles through a dresser drawer where he keeps the bills — stacks and stacks of them detailing costs of treating congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, gout, diverticulitis and other conditions.
Cowart, who lives near Stringer’s Ridge, was laid off from his job as a maintenance worker in November 2010. He said he is no longer able to work because of his medical condition and has applied for disability.
“There are thousands of people out there just like me, or worse, that can’t get the care they need,” Cowart said. “It’s really sad.”
In 2010, about 857,000 Tennesseans and almost 1.4 million Georgians ages 19 to 64 did not receive needed medical care because of cost, according to a study released Tuesday by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute.