“Americans are driving less, skipping meals and putting off big life moves, like buying homes or having children, to keep up with health care costs, according to two Gallup polls released Thursday,” Daniel Wu writes (gift link) over at The Washington Post. “Roughly one-third of Americans are cutting back on daily spending to cover medical costs, and about half of middle-income households said they have delayed a major life event because of the same expenses, the polls found, as premiums rise and the federal government cuts Medicaid spending. Eleven percent of respondents said they had skipped a meal in the past year to meet health care costs, according to the first poll on Americans’ daily spending. Fifteen percent said they had borrowed money or prolonged a current drug prescription. The trend was most pronounced among Americans who don’t have health insurance, 62 percent of whom said they made at least one financial trade-off to pay for health care. The findings paint a stark picture of how rising medical costs are impacting Americans’ daily lives as affordability emerges as a potential weak spot for Republicans in this fall’s midterm elections. … Researchers said they expected the affordability of health care to be a potent issue for voters in the midterm elections. ‘People are making sacrifices, and they’re angry,’ said Tim Lash, president of the health care nonprofit group West Health, which conducted the research in partnership with Gallup. The second Gallup poll found that nearly 1 in 10 Americans reported postponing retirement in the past four years due to health care costs, and 6 percent said they postponed having or adopting a child.” Daniel Wu, “One-third of Americans skip meals or other needs to afford health care,” (gift link) The Washington Post.
