100 Million Americans Are Burdened by Medical Debt. Let’s Do Something About It!

Health care costs do not have to be so high. My buddy Brian got his hip replaced for $12,000 and only paid $100 out-of-pocket. But we need to stop allowing what we spend to be squandered.

Kaiser Health News and NPR have performed a tremendous act of public service by documenting the widespread harm caused by medical debt in our country. Their investigation, published last week, estimates 100 million Americans are saddled by medical debt.

The big question is: What are we gonna do about it?

We already knew that the burden of medical debt was egregious. The Urban Institute calculated several years ago that about 1 in 5 Americans had medical debt in collections. That means debt collectors have been hounding tens of millions of Americans simply because they got sick and couldn’t pay the bills.

But the Diagnosis: Debt project took the analysis beyond medical debt that’s in collections. It added other medical debt that’s hard to see – on credit cards and in payment plans and other loans. The project included a nationwide poll of a representative sample of 2,375 American adults. It found that 41 percent of Americans are burdened by some form of debt related to medical care.

Those…