You’ll Pay Full Price to Stay Sick. Don’t Ask Me for a Coupon to Get Well.

OpEd

The women who say health is too expensive usually already have the money. They’re spending it on the things that keep them tired.

Every week a woman tells me she can’t afford to fix her health. Half the time she says it holding a $7 oat milk latte.

I usually keep quiet. I’m done keeping quiet.

Here’s who I’m talking about. She’s 48. Director-level job. Household income well into six figures. She sleeps five hours and wakes at 2 a.m. drenched. She loses words mid-sentence in meetings. She gained 15 pounds around her middle and can’t explain it. She pays for a wine club, weekly takeout, lash fills, and Botox every quarter. She has a Peloton she hangs laundry on.

Then she asks me for a discount on a lab panel.

The math she won’t do

Add up a normal month for her. Daily latte: $180. Wine three nights a week: $200. Delivery three nights a week: $400. Botox averaged out: $165. That’s roughly $945 a month, or over $11,000 a year, on things that make her feel better for about an hour.

She pays every one of those at full price. She never negotiates the wine.

Sick has a price tag too

The CDC reports that about 90 percent of US healthcare spending goes to people with chronic and mental health conditions. The American Diabetes Association puts the extra medical cost of diabetes at roughly $12,000 per person per year.

Menopause symptoms have a bill of their own. A 2023 Mayo Clinic study estimated that menopause symptoms cost US women $1.8 billion a year in lost work time alone, and about $26.6 billion a year once medical costs are included.

So she’s already paying. She pays in sick days, missed promotions, prescriptions, and the specialist who tells her it’s stress. She pays at full price, in small amounts, for years.

Why she haggles

The answer is simple. Wine fixes her mood in 20 minutes. Fixing her sleep takes 12 weeks. She pays full price for fast relief and bargains over slow change.

I understand the pull. I also refuse to call it a budget problem. It’s a priority problem wearing a budget costume.

Not deciding is a decision

When you say health is “too expensive,” you’re making a choice. You’re choosing to keep the symptoms. You’re choosing the 2 a.m. wakeups, the brain fog, and the 15 pounds. You get to make that choice. Just stop pretending someone else made it for you.

To be fair: if you’re a single mom picking between groceries and rent, this isn’t about you. Start with what’s free. Sleep. Walk after dinner. Protein at breakfast. Water before coffee. Those four cost nothing and fix more than you’d guess.

But if you have a wine club, this is about you.

Do this tonight

Pull your last 90 days of bank and card statements. Circle every charge that made you feel better for less than an hour. Add them up. Divide by three.

That number is your monthly health budget. You already have it. You’ve been spending it somewhere else.

Dr. Vickie Duncan, PhD, is a functional medicine and naturopathy practitioner and the founder of Be Limitless,

a coaching practice for professional women in perimenopause and menopause.