Adults in the United States with lower and average incomes are more likely to struggle to afford their health care than people with similar incomes in most other wealthy countries, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.
But high health care costs in the U.S. affect not only people with low and average incomes. Even Americans with higher incomes are more likely than their counterparts in most other countries to cite problems with high health care costs. In some cases, high-income Americans are more likely to report health care cost challenges than people in other countries with low and average incomes.
The report, The Cost of Not Getting Care: Income Disparities in the Affordability of Health Services Across High-Income Countries, details the findings from the Commonwealth Fund 2023 International Health Policy Survey, which explores how financial barriers affect people’s health care decisions in nine1 countries (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States). The survey findings were analyzed by income level to examine how people in different countries — and at different income levels — manage their health care costs.