Results from a 2018 survey found that slightly more than 14% of respondents said they belonged to a family struggling to pay for medical bills in the U.S.
A February 12, 2020, Associated Press article noted that the percentage marked a steep drop from 2011, when 20% of respondents said they or a family member were struggling with medical bills, but the decline has slowed in recent years and the 14% figure is similar to results from 2016 and 2017.
One possible reason for the stall in progress is that coverage expansions driven by the Affordable Care Act have slowed. “The gains of the Affordable Care Act kind of plateaued over the past few years and actually, depending on the data source, look like they’re eroding a little bit,” said Benjamin Sommers, professor of health policy and economics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Read the Associated Press article: US survey finds smaller decline in medical bill worries