Julia Dvorak said health care is worsening for her household as costs mount and supports become less certain. Dvorak, who lives outside Cedar Rapids, Iowa, said her 83-year-old mother’s emergency room trips for seizures are depleting her retirement savings and will soon force her onto Medicaid. Dvorak, 56, also said her own health costs are expected to rise next year, as she manages a chronic knee condition while on state and federal assistance.
The AP-NORC poll, conducted Dec. 4-8 and released Dec. 19, found that health care jumped to become the most cited priority among Americans when asked to name up to five issues the government should address in 2026. Respondents mentioned health care or health issues at a much higher rate than other issues commonly raised, with the share rising to about 4 in 10 from about one-third last year. The poll presented the shift as especially sharper than other commonly mentioned topics.
Dvorak said the problem is personal and widening beyond her family. “I see how it affects me and my loved ones,” Dvorak said. “But I also know it’s affecting other people, and it’s getting worse.”
The poll tied the rise in health-care concerns to changes underway in the federal government. It said the Trump administration reduced spending on Medicaid and decided to end coronavirus pandemic-era subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, changes that it said could lead to higher costs early in 2026 for millions. The survey also suggested the health-care shift could affect next year’s midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress.
Even with immigration and worries about rising costs still present, the poll found Americans also expressed lower confidence in government’s ability to tackle problems. It said about 66% of U.S. adults reported being “slightly” or “not at all confident” in the government making progress in 2026, down from 58% last year.
In Arkansas, Joshua Campbell said the costs surprised him when he and his wife sought a health plan for their young daughter. Campbell, 38, a small business owner who voted for Trump last year and generally approved of how the president handled his job—particularly on immigration—said health care expenses became a major priority heading into 2026. “Health care costs are pretty crazy,” Campbell said. “I just thought, ‘Man, there’s got to be something better than what we have.’”
The AP-NORC poll also reported that adults ages 45 to 59 had particularly high concern about health care, a group that may face higher expenses than younger adults while not yet eligible for Medicare. The poll said the overall landscape resembled Trump’s first term, when health care reform ranked among the top concerns at the end of his first year, but that it now included a new element: cost-of-living concerns mentioned by about one-third of respondents.
Cost and inflation concerns remained at the forefront in interviews included in the poll. Tommy Carosone, 44, a jet aircraft mechanic in St. Peter’s, Missouri, said his wife’s grocery spending has risen sharply, particularly on meat. “My wife is spending so much more money on groceries than just a few years ago. Every time she comes home from the grocery store, I hear about it,” Carosone said. “She tells me it’s stupid expensive, especially meat. Ground beef, bacon, anything from the deli. It’s outrageous.”
Carosone said he and his family have limited room to adjust as prices remain high. “In the meantime, what are you going to do, not eat?” he said. The poll reported that about 2 in 10 U.S. adults named housing costs as a priority for the government in the coming year, and it said younger adults were more likely than older adults to list housing expenses.
On immigration, the AP-NORC poll found a modest shift by party. It reported that about half of U.S. adults named immigration as a priority last year, and that 44% said they wanted the government to prioritize immigration in the current year’s priorities. The poll said Democrats grew increasingly concerned, with about 4 in 10 Democrats listing immigration now, up from 32% last year, while Republicans and independents declined, even as majorities of Republicans still considered it a priority.
Roxanna Holper, 64, said she worries about the Trump administration’s approach to immigration, and described herself as non-ideological. “(Trump) campaigned with, you know, ‘We’re going to get the worst of the worst … off the streets,’” Holper said. “Well, who doesn’t want that?” She said she believes deportations are happening in ways that do not match the campaign message. “You hear stories where a mom was deported with her two children,” Holper said. “Like, what the hell — well, who are we as a society that we would treat anybody like that? That is so appalling.”
The poll’s results were drawn from a sample of 1,146 adults and conducted Dec. 4-8 using NORC’s AmeriSpeak Panel, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for adults overall.