| Verified against primary record | |
| Uninsured, United States | 10.0 per cent of people under 65, about 27.6 million, full year 2025[1] |
|---|---|
| Emergency duty | Screening and stabilisation for any individual, with payment inquiry barred as a precondition[2] |
| Charity care | Non-profit hospitals must have a written policy; no federal eligibility threshold is set[3] |
| Records read | Survey releases, statute and tax guidance, 30 September 2026 |
| Independently reported | |
| Does uninsurance cause travel | No study located establishes the association[4] |
| Bands apply only to the rows beneath them. The two uninsured figures in circulation measure different things and are not combined here. No provider-supplied figures are used. | |
Medical travel for uninsured patients describes the proposition that people without health coverage leave their own country to obtain treatment they could not afford at home. It is among the most repeated explanations of medical travel and, as this entry sets out, among the least tested.
The scale of uninsurance
Across the full year 2025 the National Health Interview Survey recorded 10.0 per cent of people under 65 in the United States, about 27.6 million, as uninsured at the time of interview. Among adults aged 18 to 64 the figure was 11.6 per cent, about 23.5 million; among children under 18 it was 5.6 per cent, about 4.0 million.[1] A separate official series, the Current Population Survey, reported an uninsured rate of 8.0 per cent for 2024, covering all ages and counting only those uninsured for an entire calendar year.[5] The two are different measures with different denominators and should not be used interchangeably.
The consequences are measured directly. In 2025, 6.0 per cent of adults did not obtain needed medical care because of cost, and 7.5 per cent did not take medication as prescribed in order to save money.[6] These count care not taken. They do not count care obtained elsewhere.
What the safety net does and does not do
Two American legal mechanisms are frequently described as making travel unnecessary, and both are narrower than their reputation. The first is the emergency treatment statute, which requires a hospital with an emergency department to provide an appropriate medical screening examination to any individual, expressly whether or not eligible for benefits, and, where an emergency medical condition is found, either to stabilise it or to transfer the patient. A separate provision bars the hospital from delaying screening or treatment in order to inquire about the individual’s method of payment or insurance status.[2]
What the statute does not do is equally important. It creates a duty to screen and to stabilise. It carries no obligation to treat non-emergency conditions, and no obligation to waive, cap or reduce the bill afterwards. Describing it as free emergency care for the uninsured misstates it.
The second mechanism is the financial assistance obligation on non-profit hospitals. Federal tax law requires such a hospital to establish a written financial assistance policy stating its own eligibility criteria, the basis for calculating amounts charged, and how to apply, and provides that an eligible individual may not be charged more than amounts generally billed for emergency or medically necessary care.[3] The requirement is that a policy exist and disclose its own terms. No federal income threshold is prescribed, so eligibility is set hospital by hospital. Statements that American non-profit hospitals must provide free care below a given income level describe individual hospital policy or state law, not the federal requirement.
The claim that has not been tested
The only population-based measurement of medical travel located for this entry found an overall prevalence of 1.32 per cent, with a 95 per cent confidence interval of 1.00 to 1.64, among 93,492 survey respondents across eleven states and territories for calendar year 2016, of whom 517 were identified as medical tourists.[4] A prevalence is not an association. No study was located showing that insurance status predicts travelling abroad for care.
Nor can the figures be combined to produce one. The uninsurance rates and the travel prevalence come from separate survey instruments with different populations, years and definitions; multiplying one by the other would construct a number rather than measure one. The proposition that uninsured people travel abroad because they are uninsured should be treated as asserted rather than demonstrated.
See also
- Medical travel and treatment affordability, the wider cost argument and what has been measured
- Self-funded medical travel, the payment route this group would use
- Medical tourism and universal health coverage, for the system-level view
- Emergency healthcare abroad, the reverse case of unplanned care in another country
References
- Cohen RA, Briones EM, National Center for Health Statistics. Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, 2025. Released May 2026. Verified against primary record: official statistics release opened and read. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
- United States Congress. 42 U.S.C. 1395dd, Examination and treatment for emergency medical conditions and women in labor. Verified against primary record: statutory text read. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. Financial assistance policy and emergency medical care policy, Section 501(r)(4). Verified against primary record: tax administrator guidance on its own statute, opened and read. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
- Stoney RJ, Kozarsky P, Walker AT, Gaines J. Population-based surveillance of medical tourism among U.S. residents from 11 states and territories. Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, vol. 43, no. 7, July 2022; survey reference year 2016. Independently reported: peer-reviewed analysis of an official survey. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
- Bunch LN, Ketema H, United States Census Bureau. Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2024. Current Population Reports P60-288, released 9 September 2025. Verified against primary record: official statistics report opened and read. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
- Norris T, Bottoms-McClain L, Adjaye-Gbewonyo D, National Center for Health Statistics. Early Release of Selected Estimates Based on Data From the 2025 National Health Interview Survey. Reference period January to December 2025. Verified against primary record: official statistics release opened and read. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
Sourcing note: the survey releases, the statute and the tax guidance were opened and read on 30 September 2026. The emergency treatment duty is described from the statutory text rather than from commentary, because the commentary routinely overstates it. No number is offered for uninsured people travelling abroad, because none exists: the available figures measure uninsurance and medical travel separately, and combining them would produce a construction rather than a measurement.