Research: healthcare causing one third of Americans to cut back on necessary costs
Mar 13, 2026, 7:37 PM | Updated: Mar 14, 2026, 7:55 pm
New research shows a third of Americans are having to cut back on other day-to-day necessities like food to pay for healthcare. Local doctors said Utahns are feeling the pain, too. (Matt Gephardt, KSL)
(Matt Gephardt, KSL)
SALT LAKE CITY — New research shows a third of Americans are having to cut back on other day-to-day necessities like food to pay for healthcare. Local doctors said Utahns are feeling the pain, too.
That data comes from the West Health-Gallup Center. According to the data, this year, millions of Americans are expected to face higher insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs due to the expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies and upcoming Medicaid enrollment cuts.
Dr. Joseph Jarvis, a longtime physician and chair of the Utah Cares Political Issue Committee, said thousands of Utahns have to declare bankruptcy due to medical bills every single year.
“It’s just ridiculous, we can do better than this,” he said. “Most of the federal debt into the future is federal debt due to outsized spending on healthcare. We must curb that.”
Sen. Jen Plumb, D-Salt Lake City, works as an emergency room doctor when she’s not on Capitol Hill. She said she’s seeing people come to the hospital sicker because they’re delaying preventive care.
“Having to, kind of, hold off on perhaps healthcare expenditures, or on being able to afford a doctor’s visit. Even being able to afford medications, sometimes we see people rationing their medications,” she said.
Plumb said a lot needs to change.
“I think that there are some really crucial conversations that are going to have to be happening, in the months and years going forward,” she said. “This is just not sustainable.”
Plumb said if she had a magic wand, she would put the U.S. on the path to a single-payer healthcare system.
Jarvis said he would get rid of for-profit healthcare business model.
“We’re the nation that is driving ourselves off an economic cliff, because healthcare costs rise faster than the rest of the economy does year in and year out,” he said. “We cannot afford to continue down this road.”
Plumb said if you have to make tough decisions about your healthcare, don’t ration your prescriptions or ignore your mental health.
Contributing: Devin Oldroyd, KSL
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