(POLL) High stress among U.S. adults struggling to pay for health care

The following is an excerpt from Gallup News.

Editor’s Note: The research detailed below was conducted in partnership with West Health, a family of nonprofit and nonpartisan organizations focused on lowering healthcare costs to enable successful aging.

Seven percent of U.S. adults, representing an estimated 18 million people, report recently being unable to pay for care or medicine for themselves or their families and lacking access to affordable quality care if it were needed today.

The large majority of these people report that healthcare prices today are a daily source of stress.

These latest findings are based on a new analysis of the West Health-Gallup Healthcare Affordability Index and the Healthcare Value Index, which are periodically updated and drawn from the opinions of nearly 5,600 American adults.

West Health and Gallup developed the indices after 30% of Americans reported that they had to skip needed medical care due to cost in 2021.

The Healthcare Affordability Index evaluates three key factors in determining the ability of Americans to afford healthcare: (1) avoiding treatment due to cost, (2) forgoing prescribed medication or drugs due to cost, and (3) having immediate access to affordable quality healthcare.

Based on these three metrics, Americans fall into three categories:

• cost secure individuals (61% of the U.S. adult population), who report no recent occurrences of being unable to afford healthcare or prescribed medicine in their household and have access to quality care if it were needed today

• cost insecure individuals (32% of the U.S. adult population), who report recent occurrences of being unable to pay for care or medicine or lack access to quality healthcare

• cost desperate individuals (7% of the U.S. adult population), who report recent occurrences of being unable to pay for care or medicine for themselves or members of their household and lack access to affordable quality care if it were needed today (Continued...)

Read complete analysis here.