More Americans Can't Afford Health Care, Prescriptions

Posted April 2, 2025

More Americans Can't Afford Health Care, Prescriptions

The inability to pay for health care has reached a new high in the United States, a new study says.

More than one-third of Americans — an estimated 91 million people — say they couldn't afford to access quality health care if they needed it today, according to the latest West Health-Gallup Healthcare Affordability Index.

“The rising trajectory in the inability to pay for healthcare is a disturbing trend that is likely to continue and even accelerate,” said Tim Lash, president of West Health Policy Center, part of a group of nonprofit organizations focused on healthcare and aging.

“Policy action at both the state and federal level is urgently needed, or even more Americans will have to go without treatment or be forced to make painful tradeoffs between paying for medical care or paying for other necessities,” Lash continued in a news release. “The human and economic costs are enormous.”

The Healthcare Affordability Index has been tracking health care access in the U.S. since 2021, researchers said.

Its latest results show that 35% of Americans could not access quality health care if they need it.

Rates were even higher among Black Americans (46%) and Hispanic Americans (52%), results show.

Access to health care remained stable among wealthier Americans, but declined significantly among lower-income households.

About two-thirds (64%) of people earning less than $24,000 said they can’t afford health care, an 11-point increase from 2023, results show.

Likewise, 57% of households with an annual income between $24,000 and $48,000 said they struggle to afford health care, up 12 points from 2023.

In all, about half (51%) of Americans are considered “cost secure,” in that they have faced no recent difficulty affording either health care or prescriptions, researchers found. It’s the lowest level observed since the index started in 2021.

Hispanic Americans have experienced the greatest declines in such security, with 34% saying they have no problem affording health care – down 17 points from 2021.

Black Americans experienced a 13-point drop in health care security, with 41% now saying they don’t struggle with health care bills.

Overall, about 11% of Americans, about 29 million people, are classified as “cost desperate” – meaning they are unable to afford either health care or prescriptions.

“Healthcare affordability and access continue to erode nationally, and this issue is especially acute among Black, Hispanic, and lower-income adults,” Dan Witters, a senior researcher at Gallup, said in a news release.

“White adults and those in higher-income households, in contrast, remain largely insulated from these worsening trends," Witters added. "Among these groups, this is the widest gap in access to care we have recorded thus far, with many Americans experiencing increased hardship year over year.”

The survey was conducted online and by mail between Nov. 18 and Dec. 27, 2024, among 6,296 people 18 and older. Respondents were from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus 1.6 percentage points.

More information

KFF has more on Americans’ struggle with health care costs.

SOURCE: West Health Institute, news release, April 2, 2025