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Medicine
What percentage of American adults had an unexpected major medical bill in the past year that insurance didn't fully cover?
21.3% of American adults had an unexpected major medical bill in the past year that insurance didn't fully cover - about 21 in every 100, or 2 in 10. That is the figure published by the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking for 2025.
0 in 100100 in 100
21.3
Where this number comes from
- Survey
- Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking
- What it measured
- SHED 2025 item E2 (“During the past 12 months, have you had any unexpected major medical expenses that you had to pay out of pocket because they were not completely paid for by insurance?”), counting responses 1=Yes. Computed from the Federal Reserve's public-use microdata with its post-stratification weight WEIGHT. The public file has no design variables or replicate weights, so the standard error follows the Fed's documented design effect: SE = √(deff · p(1−p)/n), deff = 1.144 (the Fed's 1.14, or the Kish design effect of these weights if larger); unweighted n = 12,934.
- Population
- U.S. adults aged 18 and over
- Year
- 2025
- 95% confidence interval
- 20.55% to 22.05% (derived from the published standard error)
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, public-use data (doi:10.17016/datasets.002). Percentages computed here, with attribution.. See the source data
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