{"id":745851,"date":"2026-06-18T21:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T21:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/745851\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T21:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T21:42:11","slug":"less-than-half-of-americans-can-afford-quality-healthcare-gallup-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/745851\/","title":{"rendered":"Less than half of Americans can afford quality healthcare, Gallup finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Less than half of Americans could afford medical expenses and access to quality care last year, according to a new Gallup\u00a0poll<\/a>, highlighting mounting financial strain even among many higher-income households.<\/p>\n

The share of “cost secure” Americans \u2014 those who could afford access to quality care and pay for doctors’ visits and prescriptions \u2014 fell to 49% last year, down from a peak of 61% in 2022 and marking the lowest level since Gallup began tracking the metric in 2021.<\/p>\n

The decline in affordability is coupled with rising concerns among Americans about their ability to cover healthcare costs. Fifty-one percent of those polled by Gallup said they are concerned about paying for medical services in the next year, while 42% worry about affording prescription drugs.<\/p>\n

The difficulty spans income levels. About one-third of households earning between $120,000 and $179,999 a year and one-fifth of those making at least $180,000 said they either lacked quality coverage or struggled to afford expenses such as prescription drugs, Gallup found.<\/p>\n

Affordability is also a challenge across generations. Every age group in Gallup’s data, aside from those aged 50 to 65, shows a decline in the share of people who can afford healthcare from 2023 to 2025. Adults aged 18 to 29 are the most vulnerable, with only about a third considered cost-secure.<\/p>\n

The data may only capture some of the strain Americans are currently feeling, as the study was conducted before the expiration of Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax<\/a> subsidies in early 2026 caused premiums to spike \u2014 prompting some Americans to forgo insurance<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Data from January shows ACA enrollment dipped<\/a> by more than 1 million from 2025. KFF,\u00a0a\u00a0nonprofit provider of health policy news and research, estimates<\/a>\u00a0that nearly 5 million fewer people will enroll in ACA plans this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In January, the Trump administration announced\u00a0“The Great Healthcare Plan,”<\/a> which the White House said would lower health insurance premiums and deliver money directly to Americans to cover healthcare costs. A month later, the administration launched TrumpRx,<\/a> a site where Americans can get drugs at discounted prices.<\/p>\n

Gallup based the findings on web and mail surveys of 5,660 U.S. adults conducted between October and December.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Edited by<\/p>\n

Aimee Picchi<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

\n Go deeper with The Free Press\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Less than half of Americans could afford medical expenses and access to quality care last year, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-745851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745851","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=745851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}