Sure, you may have health insurance. But do you know what this insurance really covers versus doesn’t cover? Unfortunately, like friendships and underwear, you may not realize where holes exist until it’s too late. And the “hole” finding of a recent GoodRx survey of Americans, conducted through YouGov, is that 26 percent of respondents reported at least one coverage gap in their insurance.

The Most Common Health Insurance Coverage Gap Was For Prescription Medications

The most common gap was with their health insurance not covering certain prescription medications that they wanted covered—a gap reported by about 47 percent of respondents. This was followed by gaps in dental care (~35 percent), medical procedures or surgeries (~23 percent), doctors visits (~22 percent), vision care (~19 percent) and mental health services (~15 percent). The survey took place from May 7, 2026, through July 21, 2026, and queried a representative sample of adults in the U.S. who had had a prescription medication filled during the previous month and had health insurance that had some type of prescription drug coverage.

Health Insurance Coverage Gaps Seem To Be Growing

On the "hole," these findings are not good. But the worse news is that these holes may be growing bigger and bigger. “The number of drugs that tend to not be covered has continued to grow year over year,” warned Wendy Barnes, president and CEO of GoodRx. “Generally speaking, we see about 100 NDCs per year on average across major payers added to the list of uncovered drugs." In this case, NDC doesn’t stand for non-dairy creamer but instead is an acronym for National Drug Code, the unique 10- or 11-digit number assigned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to identify every prescription and over-the-counter drug in the United States.

Barnes continued by saying, “So, as such, those of us that have insurance continue to see pretty big gaps in just the number of drugs that are not covered completely, in parallel with the proliferation of high deductible health plans and the percentage of copay based plan structures, which are becoming much more common.” Add the fact that medication prices have continued to rise and you’ve got a ”hole" lot of problems for Americans, including those with health insurance.

Such Health Insurance Coverage Gaps Have Been Affecting Americans

This suggests that the whole political chatter of health insurance in the U.S. should not simply be about getting the uninsured some health insurance. Health insurance in this country is a lot more complicated than a generic pair of underwear or panties. Just having any kind of health insurance doesn’t necessarily mean that you can get the medications and healthcare that you need. The quality and structure of the health insurance can vary significantly and do matter a lot. Such details can end up dictating what type of care and treatment you ultimately get.

It can also affect other aspects of your life. Just look at what a 2025 Gallup survey of Americans found—nearly one-third of respondents, including around 30 percent of those with health insurance, had to cut back on essential expenses like food, gas or utilities simply to cover healthcare costs. That means that many Americans are literally having to eat their health insurance coverage gaps.

Health Insurance Coverage Gaps Have Led To The Need For Gap Fillers

There are companies offering to fill such coverage gaps such as GoodRx. GoodRx partners with pharmacy benefit managers—companies that serve as intermediaries negotiating medication prices among pharmacies, manufacturers and insurance companies—to access negotiated medication prices that are discounted from pharmacies’ standard retail prices. “We’ve long known that there were gaps in insurance, which is one of the reasons GoodRx exists,” Barnes explained. “Candidly, if insurance worked the way it was supposed to and the way we all hope it would, there wouldn’t be a need for GoodRx.”

GoodRx has been expanding to fill the other coverage gaps beyond just those in prescription medication coverage. For example, there GoodRx Companion offering is a monthly membership that can provide discounted prices not only on prescription medications but also dental care, vision care, lab tests, medical imaging and telehealth. Barnes mentioned that even though such an offering is designed primarily to cover health insurance coverage gaps, GoodRx has been seeing those with no health insurance sign up as well.

Check Your Health Insurance Coverage Carefully

Again, a big problem with health insurance is that you may not know what is covered and what is not until you actually need the coverage. And once you need that coverage, your medical condition may weaken your ability to fight for such coverage. Therefore, it is better to scrutinize your health insurance offerings, choose the offering—if you have a choice—based on coverage, sort of like how would choose amongst clothing, and make sure you have what’s not covered be covered by something else.