KSHB 41 reporter Elyse Schoenig covers issues surrounding the cost of health care. Share your story idea with Elyse.
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People in the U.S. owe at least $220 billion in medical debt, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF).
According to the KFF analysis of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), from 2019 to 2021, an average of 10% of Kansans and 10.6% of Missourians reported having medical debt in a given year.
KFF also reports around 14 million people in the U.S. owe more than $1,000 in medical debt, while around 3 million people in the U.S. owe more than $10,000 in medical debt.
Undue Medical Debt is a national nonprofit organization that works to end medical debt. The organization raises money from donors across the country and acquires medical debt for pennies on the dollar.
Undue Medical Debt’s vice president of public policy and programs Eva Stahl shared the top three tips for people facing medical debt:
- Don’t put your medical bills on your credit card
- Always ask about financial assistance you could qualify for
- Ask a trusted friend to coach or support you through these conversations you’re having on reducing your payments
"The feelings of isolation that they're feeling and how that affects their day-to-day is real and unsettling,” Stahl said. “So being able to remove these debts for people, people talk about being able to sleep, being able to open their mail, being able to answer the phone - so feeling less isolated. Which I think, in this moment in time, is so incredibly important.”
Stahl said Undue Medical Debt pursues partnerships with hospitals, health systems, and physician groups to purchase debt from them.
She said they have certain criteria that the people they aim to help must meet: 400% of the federal poverty level (a little under $100,000 for a family of three), or if the debt is more than 5% of a person’s income.
“It's really meant to target the people that we know are struggling across the country with medical debt. So those would be people that are not just uninsured, but what we call underinsured,” Stahl said. “So people who have insurance, but maybe very high out-of-pocket costs, and cannot afford to pay them. And so, we step in to help mitigate the harm.”
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