Nearly half of American adults faced medical bill issues in last year - survey

High-income Americans are almost as likely to defer healthcare because of cost as people with low or average incomes in eight other developed countries, a new survey brief by the Commonwealth Fund finds.

The survey findings also show that nearly half of American adults (46%) faced a problem with a medical bill in the last year, and almost half with low or average incomes (46%) skipped or delayed needed care because of price – the highest rate in any of nine countries analyzed.

“In some cases, lower-income people in other countries are better off than higher-income Americans,” said Munira Gunja, lead author of the study and senior researcher at the Commonwealth Fund , though both “lower-income and higher-income adults both really struggle to use their healthcare”.

The US fared poorly on accessibility metrics in general, but perhaps most surprising is how even high-income Americans are disadvantaged by healthcare prices relative to other nations. Almost one-third of high-income Americans (29%) said they skipped or delayed care – such as filling a prescription or undergoing a test – because of a cost-related problem in the last year.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/16/hospital-bill-healthcare-cost-data

"World's greatest healthcare" should actually mean something, it should mean that we don't see this.