New polling finds that the proportion of Americans who have delayed medical treatment due to costs has hit a record high as it becomes harder for the working class to afford regular and emergency costs.

According to Gallup, 38 percent of Americans had either put off seeking medical treatment themselves or a member of their families did so in 2022. This is a 12 percent rise from the proportion of Americans who experienced this in 2021 and 2020.

This is an all-time high since Gallup began recording this data in 2001, and a 5 percent increase over the previously recorded high of 33 percent, in 2019 — even though, in the roughly two decades prior, the proportion had remained relatively steady at around 30 percent.

Younger people, women, and those with lower incomes were most likely to put off care; while 35 percent of people aged between 18 and 49 put off medical care, only 13 percent of people over 65 years old did the same, for instance. Meanwhile, those with an annual household income under $40,000 were almost two times more likely to put off medical care for a serious condition than those with household incomes above $100,000.

The survey also found that the proportion of Americans who put off treatment for a “very” or “somewhat” serious condition rose sharply last year, with over one in four Americans — 27 percent — saying as such. By contrast, 11 percent said that they had put off treatment for a “not very” or “not at all” serious condition, which roughly lines up with previous years’ data.

Gallup wrote that the sharp rise can be attributed to high inflation rates, which have created financial hardship for over half of households, other Gallup surveys have found.

Indeed, households are being hit extremely hard financially from many angles. Health care costs are becoming increasingly unaffordable for both the uninsured and those with insurance, and pharmaceutical companies continue to raise costs of prescription drugs at a rate that far outpaces inflation.

Health care unaffordability is a uniquely American problem. The U.S. spends more than any other wealthy country on health care each year as a result of being the only wealthy country without universal health care and basic health-related provisions like guaranteed paid sick and parental leave. Research has found that the pharmaceutical industry, which is behind one of the U.S.’s most powerful lobbies in D.C., makes more money off of U.S. sales than all other countries combined for many key drugs.

https://truthout.org/articles/38-per...a-record-high/