More Than Half of Older Adults Very Concerned About Medical Costs

Aug 21, 2024

TUESDAY, Aug. 20, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Ahead of the 2024 election, more than half of older U.S. adults report being very concerned about the costs of medical care, according to a research letter published online Aug. 14 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

John Z. Ayanian, M.D., from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and colleagues surveyed a nationally representative cohort of adults aged 50 years and older as part of the National Poll on Healthy Aging to understand which health-related concerns are most salient before the 2024 election. The analysis included 2,576 responses.

The researchers found that five of the top six concerns were related to costs of health care and health insurance, with 44.6 to 56.3 percent reporting they were very concerned about these issues. Financial scams and fraud were the other top-rated concern (52.8 percent very concerned). There were significant differences in being very concerned about medical care costs by age, with 59.6 percent of those ages 50 to 64 years being very concerned versus 53.4 percent of those ages 65 to 101 years. Significant differences were also seen by gender (59.3 percent of women versus 54.1 percent of men), political tendency (68.2, 56.4, and 51.4 percent for liberal, moderate, and conservative, respectively), and residency (55.9 versus 61.7 percent for metropolitan versus nonmetropolitan areas).

“To engage older voters, candidates for president and Congress should prioritize communicating their plans for controlling health care costs,” the authors write.

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