A new national survey finds millions of Americans cutting food, utilities and other essentials to afford healthcare, highlighting the growing affordability crisis in the U.S. system.
As the Trump administration spends an estimated $1 billion per day in taxpayer money bombing targets across Iran that have reportedly included an elementary school and healthcare facilities, Gallup released a survey Thursday that found one-third of Americans reported making financial trade-offs in order to pay for medical expenses last year.
The West Health-Gallup Center on Healthcare in America polled nearly 20,000 US adults between June and August 2025 and found that roughly one-third of them—equivalent to about 82 million people in the richest country in the world—were forced cut back on at least one expense in order to afford healthcare.
Eleven percent of respondents—equivalent to 28 million Americans—skipped a meal or intentionally drove less in order to pay a medical bill. Fifteen percent, the equivalent of nearly 40 million people, said they prolonged a current prescription or borrowed money, and 9% cut back on utilities.
Those numbers were strikingly similar among people who have health insurance, with 14% of insured people prolonging prescriptions to avoid paying for a new one and 9% skipping meals. Among insured Americans, 29% made at least one trade-off to afford healthcare.
The crisis is also not exclusively affecting low-income people. A quarter of people in households earning $90,000 to $120,000 per year skipped meals or other expenses to pay medical bills, and 11% of people in households earning $240,000 or more did the same.
“No one is safe from making these trade-offs,” Ellyn Maese, a senior researcher at Gallup and research director for the West Health-Gallup Center, told The New York Times.
Sixty-two percent of people without healthcare coverage were forced to make trade-offs, and 55% of people with household incomes lower than $24,000 per year as well as 47% of people earning $24,000 to $48,000 avoided expenses.
Gallup also released the results of a separate poll taken between October and December 2025, which showed how Americans are delaying major life decisions as well as altering their daily lives to afford healthcare under the for-profit insurance system.
As the Trump administration’s policies slashed healthcare for 15 million Americans and raised healthcare premiums for tens of millions of people—and as the White House demanded that families have more children—6% of respondents said they had postponed having or adopting a child due to healthcare costs, equivalent to about 16 million Americans.
Nearly 30% said healthcare costs led them to avoid taking a vacation, 18% said they delayed finding a different job, 15% said they postponed pursuing education or job training, and 14% said they postponed buying a home.
The polls are “telling a consistent story here,” Maese said.
The survey results were released weeks after the Trump administration proposed new regulations for healthcare plans purchased through the Affordable Care Act marketplace that would charge deductibles as high as $15,000 for individuals and $31,000 for families to offset lower monthly premiums—underscoring how the healthcare law passed 16 years ago has left American households vulnerable to rising costs under the for-profit health insurance system.
A survey taken last November by Data for Progress found that 65% of voters support expanding the Medicare system to everyone in the US, a proposal that would save an estimated $650 billion annually.
