{"id":291520,"date":"2025-11-18T18:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T18:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/291520\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T18:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T18:27:09","slug":"a-record-number-of-u-s-adults-are-anxious-about-health-costs-going-into-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/291520\/","title":{"rendered":"A record number of U.S. adults are anxious about health costs going into 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Americans are going into 2026 more anxious about health care costs than at any other point in recent years, a new West Health-Gallup survey finds<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Almost half of adults, 47%, say they\u2019re worried they won\u2019t be able to afford health care next year \u2014 the highest level since West Health and Gallup began tracking in 2021, the survey published Tuesday found.<\/p>\n

Concerns about prescription drug costs<\/a> have climbed steadily, the survey found \u2014 rising from 30% in 2021 to 37% in 2025, also the highest level recorded. And the share of adults who say health care costs cause \u201ca lot of stress\u201d in their daily lives has nearly doubled since 2022, rising from 8% to 15%. The survey also found that about 1 in 3 adults reported delaying or skipping medical care over the last year because they couldn\u2019t afford it. <\/p>\n

The annual survey, conducted in June through August, was based on roughly 20,000 respondents across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and asked 27 questions about people\u2019s health care experiences. <\/p>\n

Health care has become a central issue in politics. Senate Democrats\u2019 push to extend enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act<\/a> led to the longest government shutdown in history. The ACA tax credits, which have protected people from double-digit premium increases<\/a>, are set to expire Dec. 31. Republicans blocked the effort, and the Trump administration has vowed to \u201cfix Obamacare\u201d<\/a> but has yet to release a detailed plan. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe survey shows health care affordability isn\u2019t just a political debate, it\u2019s a problem many people are experiencing now,\u201d said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, a nonpartisan research group. \u201cAmericans have been struggling to keep up with rising health costs generally and health care specifically.\u201d He wasn\u2019t involved in the survey. <\/p>\n

The survey didn\u2019t touch on the subsidies\u2019 expiring<\/a>. Nor did it include questions about Medicaid work requirements<\/a> that will go into effect in 2027. <\/p>\n

Taken together with the coverage losses that would follow, many people could face even greater challenges paying for health care <\/a>in the years ahead, said Timothy Lash, president of West Health, a nonpartisan group that researches health care costs and aging. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe urgency around this is real,\u201d Lash said. \u201cWhen you look at the economic strain that is on families right now, even if health care prices didn\u2019t rise, the costs are rising elsewhere, which only exacerbates the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lash said every metric in the survey has either held steady or gotten worse. <\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans are saying, \u2018Hey, now that I really think about it, I\u2019m paying too much and I\u2019m not getting enough,\u2019\u201d Lash said. \u201cHealth care is not what it needs to be right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Differences across states<\/p>\n

How people experience health care varied greatly across states. <\/p>\n

Iowa, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., and Rhode Island ranked highest for overall health care experiences, particularly in how easily residents can afford, access and get health care when and where they need it.<\/p>\n

Texas, New Mexico, Nevada and Alaska ranked at the bottom of the list.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

While 66% of people in Nebraska \u2014 which ranked 10th overall \u2014 said it\u2019s easy to get the health care they need, just 30% in New Mexico and 31% in Nevada agreed.<\/p>\n

But even in the top-ranked states, many people still face difficulties, Lash said. About 15% of people in the top 10 states said they\u2019ve been unable to pay for prescription drugs in the past three months, compared with 29% in the bottom 10. <\/p>\n

About 25% of people in the top 10 states reported skipping recommended lab tests or medical procedures because of the cost over the last year, compared with 40% of people in the bottom 10. <\/p>\n

Skipping or forgoing medical care was most common in states like Texas (43% reported doing so), Montana (43%) and Alaska (41%), the survey found.<\/p>\n

Beyond cost, Americans cited other barriers that have restricted access to care. Nationally, 55% said long wait times prevented or delayed care, and 27% cited work schedules as a barrier. <\/p>\n

The top 10 and the bottom 10 states had similar shares of people who delayed or prevented care because they didn\u2019t know how to find providers: 25% and 31%, respectively. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at the rankings … we have to be very careful to say that someone won,\u201d Lash said. \u201cIt\u2019s like being the tallest kid in kindergarten and then suddenly walking outside the classroom and realizing, like, maybe you\u2019re not so tall after all.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Dr. Adam Gaffney, a critical care physician and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, said the U.S. health care system is designed to make patients have \u201cskin in the game\u201d when it comes to paying for high health costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it\u2019s not surprising that states with high uninsurance rates \u2014 like Mississippi, which has not expanded Medicaid \u2014 have higher rates of cost problems than a state like Massachusetts, where I work,\u201d Gaffney wrote in an email, \u201ceven here in the Bay State large numbers experience cost worries due to inadequate insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawrence Gostin, director of the O\u2019Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, said the findings may add pressure on Congress to extend the enhanced ACA subsidies<\/a> before the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Even if they don\u2019t, he said, the pressure could intensify once Medicaid work requirements begin in 2027. The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan government group, projects that 4.8 million people<\/a> will lose coverage because of the work requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe public has major anxiety about access to affordable health care,\u201d Gostin said. \u201cDeep concern and anxiety over health insurance premiums and medical bills is only likely to become more acute due to the lapse in ACA premium subsidies and major cuts to Medicaid.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Americans are going into 2026 more anxious about health care costs than at any other point in recent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-291520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}