WASHINGTON (AP) — Julia Dvorak is concerned that her 83-year-old mother’s emergency room trips for seizures are draining her retirement savings and will soon put her on Medicaid.
At the same time, Dvorak, who is 56 and suffers from a chronic knee condition that keeps her on state and federal assistance, expects her own health care costs to increase next year.
It’s the kind of financial pressure that has made health care a growing concern for Americans, according to a new AP-NORC poll that asked people to share their top priorities for government to address in 2026.
The increase in health care was much stronger than on other commonly mentioned issues. It comes after President Donald Trump’s Republican administration slashed spending on Medicaid, a safety net program for poor people, and decided to end coronavirus pandemic-era subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, essentially guaranteeing that millions of people will see a sharp increase in costs early next year.
The changes could return health care to the center in next year’s midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress.
“I see how it affects me and my loved ones,” Dvorak, who lives outside Cedar Rapids, Iowa, said of the cost of health care. “But I also know it’s affecting other people, and it’s getting worse.”
Despite rising concerns about health care, immigration and broader worries about rising costs remain pressing issues, according to a December poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
But Americans are also less confident that the government will be able to make progress on the important problems facing the country in 2026. About 66% of US adults say they are “somewhat” or “not confident,” down from 58% last year.
More Americans are focused on health care concerns
About 4 in 10 US adults mentioned health care or health issues in an open-ended question that asked respondents to share up to five issues they want the government to work on in the coming year. This is up from about a third last year.
The high cost of health care came as a shock to Republican Joshua Campbell when he and his wife recently sought a medical plan for their young daughter. The 38-year-old small business owner from Hot Springs Village, Arkansas, voted for Trump last year, and mostly approves of the way Trump is handling his job, particularly on immigration. But health care costs have become a top priority for him going into 2026.
“Health care costs are pretty crazy,” he said. “I just thought, ‘Man, there has to be something better than what we have.'”
Health care is a particularly high concern for adults between the ages of 45 and 59 – people who may have higher health care costs than younger adults but who are not yet eligible for Medicare.
The poll shows a similar landscape to the one Trump faced at the end of his first year in office during his first term, when health care reform was at the top of many Americans’ minds. But Trump has an added complication now. At the end of 2017, very few mentioned concerns about the cost of living — now, about a third do.
Campbell described his politics as conservative, and while he recalled that he saw the Affordable Care Act in a somewhat negative way when it was first passed, he said that he now sees it as a step towards helping improve health care.
“I think they were at least trying, and at least trying to do something,” he said. “And I don’t really see that – it’s one of the things from the Republican Party as well that I don’t necessarily agree with. Or I think they should do better.”
Concerns about costs and inflation remain pressing
Inflation and the cost of living have been a top priority for many Americans since late 2021. Tommy Carosone is reminded every time his wife returns from the grocery store, especially with their two children, both teenagers, still at home.
“My wife is spending a lot more money on groceries than she did a few years ago. Every time she comes home from the grocery store, I hear about it,” said Carosone, of St. Peter’s, Missouri. “She tells me it’s stupidly expensive, especially meat. Ground beef, bacon, anything from the deli. It’s outrageous.”
The 44-year-old jet plane mechanic, the sole breadwinner for his family of four, doesn’t see the cost of living going down anytime soon. He voted for Trump and generally agrees with his tariff agenda as a way to make the United States more competitive, and he thinks prices will stay higher until the trade war ends.
“Meanwhile, what are you going to do, not eat?” he said.
Carosone said he is glad he voted for Trump and was concerned before Trump took office about illegal immigration. But it does not even register as a main priority for him now, in light of the action the administration is taking.
“It’s much better,” he said. “It’s not really one of the main concerns I have right now. I mean, don’t stop. That’s for sure. But I don’t think it’s something that’s the biggest concern.”
About 2 in 10 US adults want the federal government to focus on housing costs next year. That issue has been on the rise in recent years, with young adults especially likely to cite it. About a quarter of adults under 30 want the government to focus on housing costs, compared with about 1 in 10 of those 60 and over.
Worry about immigration increases slightly among Democrats, decreases among Republicans
Many Americans were hoping that Trump would bring a tough approach to immigration when he returned to the White House in January.
Immigration was the top issue Americans wanted the government to focus on last year, with about half of American adults naming it. A large number, 44%, said they want the government to prioritize immigration this year as well – but Democrats have grown increasingly concerned about the issue, while Republicans and independents have declined.
About 4 in 10 Democrats listed it as a concern this year, an apparent increase from 32% last year. A majority of Republicans still consider it a priority – about 6 in 10 mentioned it, but that’s down from about 7 in 10 last year.
Roxanna Holper, 64, is worried about the Trump administration’s approach to immigration, even though she believes Democrats have botched the issue in the past by failing to curb the “madness” at the border. The Minnesota native describes herself as non-ideological, and has voted for both Republicans and Democrats. Lately, she’s been voting Democratic.
“(Trump) campaigned on, you know, ‘We’re going to get the worst of the worst … off the streets,'” she said. “Well, who doesn’t want that?”
She said she believes that is not what is actually happening. “You hear stories where a mother was deported with her two children,” she said. “Like, what the hell — well, who are we as a society to treat somebody like that? That’s so scary.”
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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Catalini reported from Trenton, NJ Parwani reported from Columbus, Ohio.
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The AP-NORC survey of 1,146 adults was conducted Dec. 4-8 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the US population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 4 percentage points.