WASHINGTON — Most U.S. adults are worried about health care becoming more expensive, according to a new AP-NORC poll, as they make decisions about next year’s health coverage and a government shutdown keeps future health costs in limbo for millions.

About 6 in 10 Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about their health costs going up in the next year, the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds — a worry that extends across age groups and includes people with and without health insurance.

Many Americans have other health care anxieties, too. The poll found that about 4 in 10 Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about not being able to pay for health care or medications they need, not being able to access health care when they need it, or losing or not having health insurance.

Medicare beneficiaries are already shopping for next year’s coverage, and open enrollment periods for many other health plans are approaching quickly in November. Federal policies have left millions of people at risk of skyrocketing health insurance premiums or of losing their health insurance altogether. The findings show that many Americans are feeling vulnerable to spiking health care costs, with some expressing concerns about whether they’ll have coverage at all.

Latoya Wilson, an independent nurse consultant in Lafayette, Louisiana, currently uses a health insurance plan from the Affordable Care Act marketplace. But in the past two weeks, the 46-year-old has applied for more jobs than she had previously in her life, largely because she’s concerned about her premiums going up and wants the stability of employer-sponsored insurance.

“Even before these health care cuts came into play, I was already having a significant issue getting the care that I needed this year,” she said. “Anything worse than what I already have is pretty scary.”

About 8 in 10 U.S. adults say the issue of health care is “extremely” or “very” important to them personally. That includes about 9 in 10 Democrats and three-quarters of Republicans, and it puts health care next to the economy among Americans’ top issue priorities.

That significant attention on the issue raises the political stakes in what’s already been a crucial moment for federal health policy in the nation’s capital.

President Donald Trump’s mega-bill passed this summer cuts more than $1 trillion from federal health care and food assistance over a decade, largely by imposing work requirements on those receiving aid and by shifting certain federal costs onto the states. Republicans say the cuts will prevent people who don’t need aid from gaming the system, but the cuts will ultimately result in millions of people losing health insurance coverage, according to projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

More urgently, a congressional deadlock over Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire this year has thrown the federal government into a shutdown that’s dragged into a fourth straight week with no end in sight. Democratic lawmakers want any funding bill they sign to extend the subsidies, which have made ACA premiums less expensive for millions of people. Republicans in Congress have expressed willingness to negotiate on the issue, but only after the government is reopened.

In interviews, some Americans said they doubted government leaders would take the necessary action to address their concerns on health care.

“It is the federal government’s job to provide a better way of life for its people,” said Caleb Richter, a 30-year-old certified nursing assistant in Belleville, Wisconsin, who identifies as an independent. “Right now, it just feels like they’re not trying.”