Survey: Americans Struggle to Afford Medications as COVID-19 Hits Savings and Insurance Coverage
Key takeaways:
Prescription drugs are still unaffordable for many Americans. According to a new GoodRx survey, one in three Americans saw their out-of-pocket medication costs increase in 2020. Nearly 40% of people reported difficulty affording their prescription medications, and over 20% said they struggled to pay for basic necessities like food and shelter as a result.
Patients have responded to this lack of affordability by tapping into their savings, taking on more debt, and making potentially dangerous changes to their prescribed medication regimen.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made it harder for people to afford healthcare in general by draining their savings and widening the pool of uninsured patients who need regular medication.
Nearly 40% of Americans struggle to afford their regular prescription medication, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only made things worse, according to a survey from GoodRx.
We found that out-of-pocket medication costs have continued to rise during COVID-19, and the pandemic has caused many patients to lose their jobs, and consequently their income, savings, and health insurance.
To understand how the pandemic affected medication affordability in 2020, we surveyed over 1,000 people in the United States who take a prescription medication for an ongoing condition (such as diabetes or high blood pressure). We conducted the survey through Google Surveys from February 19 to February 21, 2021. The 1,029 respondents included Americans of all genders and ages. The GoodRx Research Team runs this survey annually. More information about Google Surveys’ methodology can be found here.
Medication costs are going up, and patients are having trouble paying for their prescription drugs
Healthcare costs have been rising steadily, and prescription drugs are no exception. As prices increase and insurance covers less, patients are exposed to higher out-of-pocket drug costs.
According to our survey, 29.9% of people who take medication for an ongoing condition have seen their out-of-pocket prescription drug costs go up in the last year, compared to 55.7% who saw no change and only 5.5% who saw their costs go down.
As prescription drugs have become more expensive, a substantial portion of Americans are reporting difficulty affording their medications. In the last year, 37.3% of people reported that paying for their regular prescription was difficult or very difficult, with 7.7% reporting it was very difficult.
At a time when many people are also losing their jobs and health insurance, higher prescription drug costs can make it harder to afford anything. In 2020, 20.6% of people had trouble paying for basic necessities like food and housing due to the cost of their prescription medications.
Many patients have to choose between taking the medication they need or incurring more debt
Patients who struggle to afford their medications face difficult, often impossible choices. While 19.6% of people tapped into their savings to pay for their medications in 2020, almost 16% reported not having any savings in the first place. The share of patients without any savings has increased since 2018, from 11.9% to 15.5% — likely a result of the economic downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Without enough savings to cover the cost of their prescriptions, many patients end up borrowing money to afford treatment. In 2020, 20.7% of people reported taking on debt or declaring bankruptcy due to the cost of their prescription medications. Borrowing from friends or family was the most common financial action (16.8%), followed by getting loans (5.0%), taking out another mortgage (1.2%), and filing for bankruptcy (1.0%).
In addition to taking financial action, many patients changed or stopped their medication regimen due to cost. In 2020, 38.8% of patients reported adjusting their regular prescription use in some way due to cost. The most common change was delaying a refill after running out (18.7%), followed by rationing doses to extend a prescription (16.4%), switching to a cheaper (and sometimes less effective) alternative (13.0%), stopping treatment altogether (11.5%), and buying medication from another country (2.0%).
These changes can put patients’ health at risk and result in expensive hospitalizations and even death.
The pandemic has made healthcare even more unaffordable
During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of Americans have lost their jobs and in turn, their health insurance. As a result, we saw a significant decline in employer-sponsored insurance coverage of prescription drugs, from 47.5% in 2018 to 40.5% in 2020.
For those who were eligible, Medicaid provided a safety net, and Medicaid insurance coverage of prescription drugs increased from 7.7% in 2018 to 13.8% in 2020. However, the share of uninsured patients taking regular medications also increased, from 6.0% in 2018 to 7.2% in 2020. This means that more patients faced the full cost of their medications.
We also asked patients how the pandemic has affected their ability to afford healthcare. We found that 23.6% of Americans reported at least one issue: 18.7% said that pandemic-related unemployment reduced their income, 3.5% reported that they have had to pay for COVID-19 treatment for either themselves or a family member, and 3.0% reported losing their insurance as a result of the pandemic.
Summing it all up
Prescription medications are not affordable for a large share of Americans, and the pandemic has only made matters worse. These patients are often forced to make tough choices between sticking to their medical treatment or taking on more debt. Much more needs to be done to make prescription drugs affordable and medication debt a thing of the past.
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Co-contributors: Sasha Guttentag, PhD
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Methodology
Our survey was run through Google Surveys and was entirely composed of Android smartphone users. The survey ran from February 19 to February 21, 2021; a total of 1,029 responses were collected and analyzed. Survey responses were weighted to the U.S. population using age, gender, and geographical location. More information on the Google Survey methodology is available here.
See previous GoodRx reports on medication debt here:
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