One-third of Americans with health insurance carry medical debt — and nearly half owe $2,000 or more: ‘What did they even cover?’

A new survey from the Commonwealth Fund — which advocates for a fair health care system — found that 32% of working age adults with health insurance are paying off medical debt.

Furthermore, they found that 46% of that group owe at least $2,000, with some respondents reporting debts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The survey also noted that the debt caused 68% of respondents anxiety and stress — while some were forced to “cut back on basic living necessities, including food, heat, or rent” or skip future medical care as a result and suffer negative impacts on their credit ratings. Some tried paying off the debt using credit cards but the “resulting finance charges increased their debt.”

“[The bill] came out to almost $5,000. I was like, ‘Do they want to give me another heart attack?’” Harold, a respondent in his 40s who required emergency care for a cardiac event, said in the survey. “Of course I have insurance from my employer and everything. I said to myself, ‘What did they even cover here?’”

Why having health insurance doesn’t mean you can afford care

The Commonwealth Fund’s Sara R. Collins, one of the co-authors of the report, told Time that “People are just dealing with routine care and bills that build up” and that medical debts for the insured “often stem from routine care, including doctor’s office visits and treatment for chronic conditions.” along with high deductibles.

Collins didn’t immediately respond to Moneywise’s request for comment.

The Kaiser Family Foundation’s (KFF) Health System Tracker, meanwhile, also pointed to high deductibles as one reason that insured Americans still get trapped in a cycle of medical debt.

“A serious injury or illness can cost thousands of dollars out-of-pocket to meet these deductibles and other cost-sharing requirements,” the KFF noted. “For people with a chronic illness, even smaller copays and other cost-sharing expenses can accumulate to unaffordable amounts.”

They added that Americans with health insurance “can also incur medical debt from care that is not covered by insurance, including for denied claims and for out-of-network care.”

Deductibles, meanwhile, keep rising. This year, with the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits, average Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace deductibles jumped 37% to $3,786. And while 2026 figures for employee-sponsored plans aren’t available, last year the average general deductible for single coverage rose to $1,886 from $1,787 in 2024.

And the outlook is more bleak for next year, with deductibles and premiums on both employer and marketplace plans expected to rise — in some cases by up to 15%.

That’s especially bad news for the one-third of Americans overall who told the Commonwealth Fund that they couldn’t afford an unexpected $1,000 medical bill — a group that largely includes “women, people with moderate or low incomes, people identifying as Black or Hispanic, and people in the South.”

A huge medical bill isn’t necessarily the final number

Many of the Commonwealth Fund survey respondents put the blame for their medical debt on “insurers,” “hospital services,” chronic conditions or simply “the healthcare system.”

But experts say that there are steps you can take to try and curb how much you end up paying out of pocket.