Americans End 2018 Worried About Healthcare Costs

Nearly one-half of Americans are quite concerned they won’t have enough money to pay for medical care, according to the latest Gallup poll.

Health insurance in-security is mainstream as of November 2018, when Gallup polled U.S. adults about views on healthcare costs. It’s a major concern among six in ten people that their health plan would require they pay higher premiums or a bigger portion of their healthcare expenses. It’s also a big concern for four in ten people that someone in their family would be denied health insurance covering for a pre-existing condition, or that they might have to go without health insurance at some point.

Gallup conducted this survey among 1,037 U.S. adults in early November, as American voters headed to the polls and voted Democrats into the majority of the House of Representatives.

Gallup notes their October 2018 poll learned that voters were most concerned about healthcare, immigration and the economy as key midterm voting issues.

The second chart details responses to the survey by demographics. See that women are overall more concerned about healthcare finances across the different categories than men are: paying higher premiums is a major concern to 67% of women compared with 56% of men, for example.

Paying higher premiums is also of major concern to more Independents and Democrats that Republicans.

But those premiums are also a major concern to majorities of people at all income categories, even those earning over $75K a year.

Not having enough money for health insurance is a major concern for most people with lower incomes, and people enrolled in Medicaid or Medicare.

Having to go without health insurance is a major concern for nearly one-half of Democrats and Independents, but only 29% of Republicans.

Health Populi’s Hot Points: New data from the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) profiles Americans’ financial health at the end of 2018. Only one in four people say they’re financially healthy, with another half just “coping” financially. 42 million people, 17%, believe they’re financially vulnerable.

By income, even 50% of folks with over $100K a year in earnings are just financially coping or vulnerable, CFSI learned.

Nearly one-half of Americans are spending more than or up to their income, and over one-third are unable to pay bills on-time. Nearly one-half also don’t have enough savings to cover three months of living expenses, and a third have more debt than they can manage.

Healthcare costs as a basic need take a toll on financial wellness in America. People who struggled to afford healthcare were nearly ten times less likely to be financially healthy.

And that lack of affordable healthcare leads to self-rationing behavior: in the past year, someone in the respondent’s household did not get needed healthcare because they couldn’t afford it: 50% said this happened often, and one-fourth said “sometimes.”

Reflecting back on the Gallup Poll results, it’s clear why voters brought their financial health care stress to the voting booth in November 2018. With greater financial burden forecast on healthcare consumers in 2019, no doubt we’ll see healthcare rank highly on voters’ minds in the 2020 Presidential election.

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