Because the cost has become impossible to manage not just for the uninsured, but for working Americans with coverage, steady incomes, and families to protect. A landmark new survey makes that unmistakably clear.
The Numbers Are Jarring
A March 2026 West Health-Gallup survey of nearly 20,000 adults found that roughly one-third of respondents, equivalent to more than 82 million Americans, said they have had to cut back on at least one daily living expense to cover their health care bills.
We’re not talking about the fringe. People most often ration their prescription medications or borrow money to help cover health care expenses. Others are skipping meals, cutting back on utilities, or driving less just to make the math work.
And this isn’t only happening to people without insurance. Even among those with insurance, close to three in ten have made at least one sacrifice.
It’s Reshaping How People Live Their Lives
The financial strain doesn’t stop at the pharmacy counter. The survey estimates as many as 37 million people put off buying a home, 46 million delayed changing jobs, and 40 million scrapped plans to pursue additional education or job training.
Just over a quarter of respondents said they delayed surgical or medical treatment, while 14% held off buying a new home, and just under a tenth put off retirement.
Read that again: people are delaying retirement and career moves because of healthcare costs. “No one is safe from making these trade-offs,” said Ellyn Maese, research director for the West Health-Gallup Center.
This Isn’t Just a Low-Income Problem
The instinct is to assume this is someone else’s workforce lower-wage workers, the uninsured, people on the margins. The data says otherwise.
A quarter of adults report making trade-offs in households earning $90,000 to less than $120,000 annually, equivalent to about 9 million U.S. adults, as do 11% in households earning $240,000 or more.
About half of adults earning $48,000 to $180,000 a year said they’d postponed at least one major life decision in the past four years due to health care bills. But even a third of people earning $180,000 to $240,000 also have delayed major life decisions.
This is a workforce problem. It is sitting inside your company right now.
What Delayed Care Actually Costs
Here’s what employers often miss: when employees defer care, the bill doesn’t disappear it grows. Forgoing care can make people sicker and require more procedures, tests, drugs, and more. The increased demand for services drives up insurance premiums or out-of-pocket spending to the point where some people conclude it’s prohibitively expensive and go uninsured.
Deferred care today becomes a claims spike tomorrow. It also shows up in absenteeism, presenteeism, and turnover costs that don’t appear on a medical bill but are very real on a P&L.
What Employers Can Do Right Now
The standard group health plan was designed for a different era. It was built around catastrophic coverage, not access. Concierge-based Employee Benefitsvoluntary benefits like BioFlex exist precisely to close this gap, putting primary care, urgent care, mental health support, and prescription access in employees’ hands at near-zero out-of-pocket cost, without changing your existing plan.
When employees have a place to go before a condition becomes a crisis, everyone wins: the employee gets care, and the employer avoids downstream claims stemming from deferred problems.
“When families across every income level are forced to choose between medical bills and paying their heating or electric bill, that’s not a personal budgeting problem; it’s a systems failure,” said Tim Lash, president of the West Health Policy Center.
A voluntary concierge benefit won’t fix the system. But it can protect your people from it.
Want to see how BioFlex addresses the access gap for your workforce? Let’s have a conversation. No pitch, just exploration. https://calendly.com/john-gies/bioflex-introduction
