Good morning Bella. I bought your books when I found out you had authored them, and while I am in the midst of a move and haven't read them yet I"m delighted to find you on here. I am a fellow author of two, different topics, but a lifetime single. Your work came to my attention recently when, as a 69 year old woman who had moved to Eugene OR, I ran hard into precisely what you were discussing. My situation was typical. I needed a procedure, my local medical facility demanded that I provide a family member (they are all dead) and they were immensely resistant to the notion that I could possibly be without ANYONE who could be called upon to drive me home and back and sit with me all night. So I lied. I got my neighbors to lie. I am deeply uncomfortable with such dishonesty, but it was the only way to circumvent such stupidity. I got a call from a female member of the surgical staff and I called her on the singleism, to which she said "there is no such thing." That is when I bought your books.
Of COURSE it's a thing. I live it all the damned time.
As a prize winning author and journalist, and a military veteran who writes about aging vibrantly, this topic touches my cohort directly. I cannot exhume dead family members and I can't conjure up people to serve me as demanded. The way I see it, the medical community cares about two things: turning over beds (profit) and protecting themselves from liability. If they genuinely gave a damn about us we'd be kept overnight, after which we could bloody well drive ourselves home.
My primary care provider wants me to get a colonoscopy. Well, sure. However, the VA demands that someone brings me, stays for the procedure and then takes me home and stays with me. For two years when she sends me the request I write her back, politely, and state that when the VA can provide ME with the transport, the attendant, and the overnight care, fine. I'll have it done. But until those requirements are dropped there will be no such procedure. People are, as you point out, either bribing Lyft drivers or not getting care. That is sick. And singleism, just one more way to punish people for not existing in the 1950s, is alive and well.