A recent survey by the Urban Institute found that nearly half of working-age Americans struggled to pay for their family’s healthcare in 2025, with 35% of people forced to leave their medical needs completely unmet due to high costs.

Affordability Challenges Across Insurance Types

The research, which analyzed data from over 10,000 adults in December 2025, highlights how widespread the issue has become, regardless of whether a person has health insurance. People without insurance faced the highest rate of financial difficulty at 60%, while those with coverage, including those who bought their own insurance and those enrolled in Medicaid, also reported significant affordability challenges.

According to Katherine Hempstead, senior policy advisor at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, ‘Affordability of healthcare is everyone’s concern, not just people who are uninsured.’ The financial burden fell especially hard on people already dealing with medical problems, with about 69% of adults with disabilities struggling to afford their care.

Demographics and Geography Play a Role

Demographics and geography also played a clear role in the findings, with over half of Black and Hispanic adults, rural residents, and people living in the southern United States reporting difficulty paying for their families’ medical needs last year. When families couldn’t afford care, the most common result was simply going without it, while others took on financial baggage, with just under 30% of the surveyed adults saying their family had to go into debt to pay their medical bills.

Researchers warn that the situation might get worse for working families in the near future, pointing to the recent expiration of enhanced premium tax credits, which has already pushed up premiums and deductibles for people buying ACA Marketplace plans. They also noted that federally mandated Medicaid and Marketplace policies are projected to leave millions more without insurance.

Original reporting: Tampa Free Press — read the source article.