Table 3.

Barriers to Health Care by Employment Status

Barriers to health care	Employed	Newly unemployed	Chronically unemployed	Newly unemployed vs. employed	Newly unemployed vs. chronically unemployed
				Difference (95% CI)	Difference (95% CI)
Barriers related to costs
Skipped Medication Due to Cost	24.5%	32.8%	15.1%	8.3% (−2.7, 19.4)	17.7% (7.7, 27.8)
Trouble paying medical bills	27.3%	43.2%	22.9%	15.9% (5.5, 26.3)	20.3% (10.4, 30.2)
Cost-related delay in care	35.2%	39.4%	23.1%	4.2% (−7.0, 15.4)	16.3% (5.8, 26.8)
Barriers not related to costs
Delays in care for reasons other than cost	15.8%	19.2%	13.8%	3.5% (−6.8, 13.8)	5.4% (−4.1, 14.9)
Fear of contracting COVID	7.3%	9.4%	8.9%	2.1% (−4.9, 9.2)	0.6% (−5.8, 7.0)
Doctor’s office closed	5.4%	2.6%	3.9%	−2.8% (−6.4, 0.9)	−1.3% (−4.1, 1.5)
No access to telehealth	2.0%	6.4%	3.3%	4.4% (−1.9, 10.7)	3.1% (−2.6, 8.8)
Did not want to use public transportation	1.8%	6.1%	2.7%	4.3% (0.1, 8.5)	3.4% (−1.0, 7.7)
Too busy with work/family	8.6%	5.8%	2.0%	−2.8% (−8.6, 2.9)	3.8% (−0.9, 8.5)

Note: Results show survey-weighted logistic regression results adjusting for age, sex, race/ethnicity, marital status, education, urban vs. rural residence, presence of chronic conditions, and state. Odds ratios were converted to predicted probabilities using marginal standardization for ease of interpretability. Adjusted differences with 95% CIs are bolded if they did not cross zero