More Than A Quarter Of Americans Grappling With Medical Debt

More than a quarter of U.S. adults say they or their family members were grappling with medical debt as of 2025, according to a new analysis by the Urban Institute.

The Urban Institute’s latest survey found that 26.6% of Americans reported they or their families owed medical debt in December 2025. This sum includes 15.4% of respondents who reported having past-due medical bills or bills they were unable to afford.

Unaffordable hospital care costs and a lack of competition across the nation’s healthcare system may be worsening medical debt burdens for some Americans, experts warned the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“One of the biggest drivers of medical debt is the soaring cost of hospital care,” Pacific Research Institute President Sally Pipes told the DCNF. “According to Rice University’s Baker Institute, hospital prices increased more than 220% between 2000 and 2022, nearly three times the rate of overall inflation.”

“A major reason is the lack of competition,” Pipes continued. “According to KFF, one or two health systems controlled the entire inpatient hospital market in nearly half of metropolitan areas in 2024. When hospitals face little competition, they have less incentive to keep prices down — and patients have fewer affordable alternatives. It’s no surprise, then, that more than half of Americans with medical debt owe money for hospital services.”

A White House Council of Economic Advisers report released in June suggests that prohibiting “anti-competitive” hospital contracting practices could help lower health costs nationwide.

However, Pipes noted that some “headlines about medical debt often paint a more alarming picture than the underlying data.”

“The Urban Institute’s latest survey found that more than one in four adults had medical debt in 2025,” she said. “But that figure includes people paying their bills in installments. Just 15.4% reported past-due medical bills or bills they couldn’t afford to pay. And nearly half of those with medical debt owed less than $1,000.”

Medical debt was most common among U.S. adults ages 45 to 54, black adults, Hispanic adults or people of races other than white or Asian and those with incomes between 100% to 200% of the federal poverty level, according to the Urban Institute’s survey. Rates were also higher among individuals who were uninsured, had a disability or said they were “in fair or poor health,” per the report.