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Nov. 18, 2025, 12:01 AM ESTBy Berkeley Lovelace Jr.Americans are going into 2026 more anxious about health care costs than at any other point in recent years, a new West Health-Gallup survey finds. Almost half of adults, 47%, say they’re worried they won’t be able to afford health care next year — the highest level since West Health and Gallup began tracking in 2021, the survey published Tuesday found.Concerns about prescription drug costs have climbed steadily, the survey found — rising from 30% in 2021 to 37% in 2025, also the highest level recorded. And the share of adults who say health care costs cause “a lot of stress” in their daily lives has nearly doubled since 2022, rising from 8% to 15%. The survey also found that about 1 in 3 adults reported delaying or skipping medical care over the last year because they couldn’t afford it. The annual survey, conducted in June through August, was based on roughly 20,000 respondents across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and asked 27 questions about people’s health care experiences. Health care has become a central issue in politics. Senate Democrats’ push to extend enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act led to the longest government shutdown in history. The ACA tax credits, which have protected people from double-digit premium increases, are set to expire Dec. 31. Republicans blocked the effort, and the Trump administration has vowed to “fix Obamacare” but has yet to release a detailed plan. “The survey shows health care affordability isn’t just a political debate, it’s a problem many people are experiencing now,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, a nonpartisan research group. “Americans have been struggling to keep up with rising health costs generally and health care specifically.” He wasn’t involved in the survey. The survey didn’t touch on the subsidies’ expiring. Nor did it include questions about Medicaid work requirements that will go into effect in 2027. Taken together with the coverage losses that would follow, many people could face even greater challenges paying for health care in the years ahead, said Timothy Lash, president of West Health, a nonpartisan group that researches health care costs and aging. “The urgency around this is real,” Lash said. “When you look at the economic strain that is on families right now, even if health care prices didn’t rise, the costs are rising elsewhere, which only exacerbates the problem.”Lash said every metric in the survey has either held steady or gotten worse. “Americans are saying, ‘Hey, now that I really think about it, I’m paying too much and I’m not getting enough,’” Lash said. “Health care is not what it needs to be right now.”Differences across statesHow people experience health care varied greatly across states. Iowa, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., and Rhode Island ranked highest for overall health care experiences, particularly in how easily residents can afford, access and get health care when and where they need it.Texas, New Mexico, Nevada and Alaska ranked at the bottom of the list.While 66% of people in Nebraska — which ranked 10th overall — said it’s easy to get the health care they need, just 30% in New Mexico and 31% in Nevada agreed.But even in the top-ranked states, many people still face difficulties, Lash said. About 15% of people in the top 10 states said they’ve been unable to pay for prescription drugs in the past three months, compared with 29% in the bottom 10. About 25% of people in the top 10 states reported skipping recommended lab tests or medical procedures because of the cost over the last year, compared with 40% of people in the bottom 10. Skipping or forgoing medical care was most common in states like Texas (43% reported doing so), Montana (43%) and Alaska (41%), the survey found.Beyond cost, Americans cited other barriers that have restricted access to care. Nationally, 55% said long wait times prevented or delayed care, and 27% cited work schedules as a barrier. The top 10 and the bottom 10 states had similar shares of people who delayed or prevented care because they didn’t know how to find providers: 25% and 31%, respectively. “When you look at the rankings … we have to be very careful to say that someone won,” Lash said. “It’s like being the tallest kid in kindergarten and then suddenly walking outside the classroom and realizing, like, maybe you’re not so tall after all.”Dr. Adam Gaffney, a critical care physician and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, said the U.S. health care system is designed to make patients have “skin in the game” when it comes to paying for high health costs.“While it’s not surprising that states with high uninsurance rates — like Mississippi, which has not expanded Medicaid — have higher rates of cost problems than a state like Massachusetts, where I work,” Gaffney wrote in an email, “even here in the Bay State large numbers experience cost worries due to inadequate insurance.”Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, said the findings may add pressure on Congress to extend the enhanced ACA subsidies before the end of the year.Even if they don’t, he said, the pressure could intensify once Medicaid work requirements begin in 2027. The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan government group, projects that 4.8 million people will lose coverage because of the work requirements.“The public has major anxiety about access to affordable health care,” Gostin said. “Deep concern and anxiety over health insurance premiums and medical bills is only likely to become more acute due to the lapse in ACA premium subsidies and major cuts to Medicaid.”Berkeley Lovelace Jr.Berkeley Lovelace Jr. is a health and medical reporter for NBC News. He covers the Food and Drug Administration, with a special focus on Covid vaccines, prescription drug pricing and health care. He previously covered the biotech and pharmaceutical industry with CNBC.

- Latest News - November 18, 2025

Americans are going into 2026 more anxious about health care costs than at any other point in recent years, a new West Health-Gallup survey finds.

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Nov. 17, 2025, 7:44 PM ESTBy Phil Helsel, Daniel Arkin and Adam ReissThe Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating a sexual battery allegation from five years ago against Sean “Diddy” Combs, the hip-hop mogul who is serving a 50-month prison sentence on two interstate prostitution convictions.The new allegation was made in Largo, Florida, on Sept. 20, according to a police report. A male music publicist and producer said he was invited to a photoshoot in a Los Angeles warehouse in 2020 about an upcoming project, according to the police report.The accuser said that at that shoot, Combs allegedly began masturbating under a shirt while watching pornography, and then exposed himself and told the accuser to assist, according to the report.The producer did not respond to Combs, who continued before throwing the shirt at him, he told police, according to the document.The man told police that he did not tell anyone about the event out of embarrassment, according to the police report. In March 2021, while in Santa Monica about the music project, two men at a house grabbed the producer, threw something over his head, and took him to a room where Combs berated him and called him a snitch, the man told Largo police, according to the report.The name of person who made the new sexual battery complaint is redacted in the Largo police report. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said that it received a copy of the Largo police report Friday.“Special Victims Bureau will be investigating the allegations,” the LASD said.A spokesperson for Combs did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday evening.The allegations are separate from those that sent Combs to prison.Combs was convicted by a jury on July 2 of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution at the conclusion of an eight-week federal trial in New York. He was acquitted on two more serious charges: racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion.The Grammy-winning rapper and Bad Boy Records founder pleaded not guilty. He is incarcerated at FCI Fort Dix, a low-security federal prison in New Jersey.In the trial, prosecutors accused Combs of leading a criminal enterprise spanning decades. Two of his former girlfriends, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and a woman known pseudonymously as “Jane,” accused Combs of forcing them to participate in marathon, drug-fueled sexual encounters known as “freak offs.”Combs, 56, still faces a raft of civil lawsuits accusing him of rape and sexual assault. He has denied wrongdoing.Phil HelselPhil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.Daniel ArkinDaniel Arkin is a senior reporter at NBC News.Adam ReissAdam Reiss is a reporter and producer for NBC and MSNBC.Meriam Bouarrouj and Juliette Arcodia contributed.

- Latest News - November 18, 2025

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating a sexual battery allegation from five years ago against Sean “Diddy” Combs, the hip-hop mogul who is serving a 50-month prison sentence.

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Nov. 17, 2025, 8:03 PM ESTBy Nicole Acevedo, Ryan Chandler, Suzanne Gamboa and Julia AinsleyCHARLOTTE, N.C. — Jonathan Ocampo has called this Southern city home for six years but, after immigration enforcement descended here over the weekend, the American citizen of Colombian descent said he doesn’t leave the house without his U.S. passport.“I’m carrying it here right now, which is sad,” he told NBC News. Ocampo said that he worries that his father, a citizen who has been in the country for 40 years, could be targeted because of being Hispanic-looking and speaking what he described as very broken English. “It’s just scary,” he said.According to the Department of Homeland Security, more than 130 people have been arrested since Border Patrol began an immigration enforcement push it calls “Operation Charlotte’s Web” on Saturday, putting many residents and business owners of the state’s largest city on edge. A popular Latino bakery was closed on Monday over fears of Border Patrol activity. Several small businesses in a shopping center also shut their doors Monday after immigration authorities were seen smashing the car window of a Honduran-born U.S. citizen, Willy Aceituno, over the weekend. Aceituno told WCNC he was getting breakfast when he noticed immigration authorities chasing two people. Three vehicles then surrounded his car and agents began asking about his immigration status. “I was scared,” he said. Aceituno, who recorded the incident, is seen on video staying inside his car and telling agents that if they broke the window they’d have to pay for it. An agent ultimately shattered the window and opened Aceituno’s car door and pulled him to the ground. In a social media post, DHS accused Aceituno of “trying to distract officers so others could evade the law.”DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that those arrested in North Carolina “have all broken the immigration laws of our country.” The deployments in Charlotte are the latest in a string of high-profile immigration enforcement actions targeting specific cities across the nation such as Los Angeles, Portland and most recently Chicago, where hundreds of the people arrested did not have prior criminal history, according to the Chicago Tribune. Ocampo said he doesn’t think Charlotte is unique in being the focus of federal immigration enforcement. “I think they’re targeting wherever there is a strong Hispanic presence, whether it’s Charlotte, whether it’s Chicago, California, I’m seeing on the news, they’re everywhere,” he said.In Charlotte, residents have reported dozens of sightings of Border Patrol agents, including one on Monday outside the community center for ourBRIDGE for Kids, a non-profit that provides afterschool programs for refugee and immigrant students.Several trucks carrying more than 20 Border Patrol agents showed up to the center Monday morning, according to a witness who shared a video of the scene with NBC News. The witness asked not to be named out of fear it would cause retaliation against the business. It is not known whether anyone was arrested. No children were present at the time since programs run in the afternoons, which were canceled for this afternoon as a precaution, the person said.In detailing immigration arrests in Charlotte, McLaughlin said some of the detainees have criminal records including “known gang membership, aggravated assault, possession of a dangerous weapon, felony larceny, simple assault, hit and run, possession of stolen goods, shoplifting, DUI, DWI, and illegal re-entry after prior deportation, a felony.” Staff at the Carolina Migrant Network said they are working on confirming these by tracking down all of those arrested.So far, some of the people detained by Border Patrol agents in Charlotte include workers at a Home Depot parking lot putting up Christmas decorations, a young man who worked at a grocery store and others in the surrounding areas of churches, apartment complexes and stores, according to Siembra NC, another advocacy group that manages an immigration hotline.“This is not about public safety,” said Stefania Arteaga, co-executive director and co-founder of the Carolina Migrant Network, a legal services group for those facing deportation. “We are seeing clear racial profiling on our streets and absolute militarization…This is about causing fear and destroying, really destroying our community.”Among the incidents confirmed by the group was an arrest reported to their hotline by a pastor at the Central United Methodist Church. Another incident outside the Weeping Willow AME Zion Church involved the detention of a “man who was participating in a church cleanup day,” according to Siembra NC. That man was hospitalized after having “a panic attack” following his immigration arrest, according to McLaughlin, who added that the man unsuccessfully tried to escape from the hospital and said he has a prior arrest for assault. Protesters gather at First Ward Park for the “No Border Patrol In Charlotte” rally before marching through uptown, in Charlotte, N.C., on Nov. 15.Grant Baldwin / Getty ImagesOn Sunday morning, a Spanish-language service at Casa Viva Church was half empty as hundreds of people in the congregation chose to stay home because they are “scared about going out because of the situation right now,” Pastor Alejandro Montez said.Jeremy McKinney, a North Carolina attorney who served as American Immigration Lawyers Association president from 2022-23, said an attorney confirmed that some of those arrested had been sent three states away to Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia.The privately run immigration center, about two and half hours south of Atlanta in a rural and isolated area, is often used because North and South Carolina have no detention centers. Because of overcrowding in Stewart, McKinney said attorneys were anticipating some of those arrested could be transferred to Louisiana. The distance and isolation makes getting legal counsel difficult for detainees who can face waiting up to a week to schedule an attorney meeting, McKinney said. Manolo Betancur, who owns Manolo’s Bakery in Charlotte, decided not to open his business Monday after he said he witnessed people being stopped by Border Patrol agents outside.“I’m not going to risk my customers,” Betancur told WCNC, NBC’s affiliate in Charlotte. “Safety is more important than any money.” Nicole Acevedo reported from New York, Ryan Chandler from Charlotte, Suzanne Gamboa from San Antonio and Julia Ainsley from Washington, D.C. Nicole AcevedoNicole Acevedo is a news reporter for NBC News.Ryan ChandlerRyan Chandler is a correspondent for NBC News.Suzanne GamboaSuzanne Gamboa is a national reporter for NBC News and NBC Latino. Julia AinsleyI am NBC News’ Senior Homeland Security Correspondent.Tangni Noriega contributed.

- Latest News - November 18, 2025

After immigration officials arrested more than 130 people, some churches report being half empty, an after school program canceled activities and one U.S. citizen said he started carrying his passport.

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