Many Americans worried about losing health insurance
While more Americans now have health insurance because of Obamacare, more than half are afraid they won't be able to afford it in the future.
Among those surveyed, 55 percent said they were either very or somewhat worried that they might not have health insurance in the future, according to the latest Bankrate Health Insurance Pulse survey. Additionally a quarter of all Americans say they currently have more medical debt than emergency savings.
Women and those between the age of 30 and 64 -- the prime earning years -- were most worried, with 60 percent of both groups expressing concern about winding up without affordable health insurance. Only half of men and those in other age groups shared this worry. Political affiliation also seems to play a role in how anxious people are about this issue: 46 percent of Democrats are either very or somewhat worried, compared to 63 percent of Republicans and 62 percent of independents.
"With the Affordable Care Act, anybody who now wants insurance can get it," David Cusano, a senior research fellow at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute said in a statement. "The question now becomes: 'Can I afford to use it?' When you think about people confronting out-of-pocket maximums at around $7,000 or deductibles of $5,000 for a family, that's a lot of money. You throw prescription drug co-pays into the mix, and I can see where you would be worried."
Not surprisingly, those with the more medical debt than emergency savings are those who earn less and were less likely to have had health insurance prior to the Affordable Care Act going into effect.
- Forty-four percent of those making less than $30,000 per year say they have more medical debt than emergency savings, while 30 percent say they have more emergency savings than debt.
- Eighty percent of people earning $75,000 a year or more have more emergency savings than medical debt, with just 6 percent reporting being swamped by medical debt.
"It will be interesting to see if this number remains stable or goes down over the next year," Cusano said. "If it goes down, that would suggest that the Affordable Care Act is actually making a positive impact on outstanding medical debt."
