Half of Americans can’t afford healthcare, Gallup poll says

Only 49% of Americans were able to consistently afford quality healthcare services last year, Gallup reported on Thursday. Gallup polled 5,660 U.S. adults in 2025 using web and mail surveys, showing a continuation of trends that the group also noted in 2024. The survey found that as healthcare costs increased, even households with over $100,000 of income per year were struggling to afford healthcare.

What did the data look like? The group of Americans who reported that they could consistently afford quality healthcare, doctors’ visits, and prescriptions shrank to a five-year low in 2025, Gallup said. The percentage of individuals who either couldn’t consistently afford quality healthcare—or who couldn’t pay for prescriptions and needed care, like doctors’ visits— was around 40% in 2025, Gallup found. The remaining 10% of respondents reported being even more desperate, unable to pay for most types of healthcare.

Dig deeper: Read my report in Compassion about Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s attempt to tackle Americans’ skyrocketing use of antidepressant drugs.