Paying for It: How Health Care Costs and Medical Debt Are Making Americans Sicker and Poorer

Commonwealth Fund October 26, 2023
Sara R. Collins, Shreya Roy, Relebohile Masitha

TOPLINES

Large shares of working-age adults say they struggle to afford health care, including 43 percent of those with employer coverage, 57 percent with marketplace or individual plans, and 45 percent with Medicaid

For many Americans, health insurance isn’t protecting them from taking on medical debt

The Commonwealth Fund Health Care Affordability Survey, fielded for the first time in 2023, asked U.S. adults with health insurance, and those without, about their ability to afford their health care — whether costs prevented them from getting care, whether provider bills left them with medical debt, and how these problems affected their lives.

As the responses show, many Americans, regardless of where their insurance comes from, have inadequate coverage that’s led to delayed...

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