Unmet healthcare needs due to cost

Hispanic adults, adults with lower incomes, and LGBT individuals disproportionately have unmet healthcare needs due to cost.

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Access to healthcare due to cost is a rising concern in the United States. When people don’t go to the doctor to address their healthcare needs, chronic conditions can worsen over time and become more burdensome and costly to manage later. Health insurance access is also important to consider when looking at barriers to healthcare access. In 2020-2024, 9.1% of adults in King County needed to see a doctor in the last 12 months but could not because of cost. 

• Race and ethnicity: Hispanic/Latino (24.6%) residents had the highest percentage of unmet healthcare needs due to cost. White (6.6%) and Asian (6.1%) residents had the lowest percentages. 

• Gender: Transgender residents (21.3%) were over 2 times more likely to have unmet healthcare needs due to cost than cisgender residents (8.6%).  

• Sexual orientation: The percentage of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) residents who had unmet healthcare needs due to cost was 14.8%, which was nearly 2 times higher than heterosexual residents (7.6%).  

• Income: In King County, residents with household incomes less than $20,000 (23.7%) were more likely to have unmet healthcare needs due to cost than those with higher incomes. The percentage of residents with unmet healthcare needs decreased as income increased. Residents in the highest household income group ($100,000+) had the lowest percentage of unmet healthcare needs due to cost at 3.3%. 

• Region and city/neighborhood: The highest percentage of unmet healthcare needs due to cost were in the South King County region at 11.2%. On a neighborhood level, residents of Kent – West (18.0%), Seatac (16.6%), and Tukwila (16.3%) had the highest percentage of unmet healthcare needs due to cost.  

• Trends: The percentage of King County residents who have unmet needs due to healthcare cost decreased from 10.7% in 2017-2019 to a 10-year low of 8.4% in 2020-2022. In recent years, the percentage appears to be rising, reaching 9.5% in 2022-2024.