There are many reasons people avoid seeing the doctor.

Getting time off from work can be difficult. Travel time or distance may be inconvenient, especially in rural areas. There is also the very human desire to avoid bad news.

But talk to experts and the conversation inevitably swings around to cost. Cost, of course, is often another way of saying health insurance.

“We do see a really big difference in the share (of people) who say they have skipped care between those that have insurance and those who are uninsured,” said Lunna Lopes, a senior survey manager with KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research, polling and news organization.

“Among the uninsured, we found that about three-quarters of them say that they have skipped care that they thought they needed because of the cost in the last 12 months. Whereas, for insured adults, there’s still a sizable share, 37%, but that’s far lower.”

Health Insurance a Key Barrier to Care
The same trend surfaces in U.S. News’ 2026 Best States rankings, which include a Healthcare Affordability metric based on a slightly more specific query from a CDC survey about who couldn’t afford to visit the doctor when they needed to in the last 12 months.

Texas had the second-highest rate of avoiding the doctor at 17.8%, while also posting the lowest Health Insurance Enrollment rate in the nation.