Undue Medical Debt is retiring $30 billion in unpaid medical payments for 20 million individuals.
DNY59/Getty Photos/E+
conceal caption
toggle caption
DNY59/Getty Photos/E+
Underscoring the huge scale of America’s medical debt drawback, a nonprofit has struck a deal to repay previous medical payments for an estimated 20 million individuals.
New York-based Undue Medical Debt, which buys affected person debt, is paying off $30 billion value of unpaid payments in a single transaction with Pendrick Capital Companions, a Virginia-based debt buying and selling firm. The common affected person debt being retired is $1,100, in accordance with Undue Medical Debt, with some reaching the lots of of hundreds of {dollars}.
The deal will forestall the debt being offered and shield thousands and thousands of individuals nationwide from being focused by collectors, although it will overwhelmingly profit residents of Texas and Florida, who account for about half of the money owed being retired.
Regardless of the dimensions of this deal, nevertheless, even proponents of retiring affected person debt acknowledge that such purchases can’t resolve a disaster that now touches round 100 million individuals within the U.S.
“We do not assume that the best way we finance well being care is sustainable,” Undue Medical Debt chief government Allison Sesso mentioned. “Medical debt has unreasonable expectations…the individuals who owe the money owed cannot pay.”
Up to now 12 months alone, People borrowed an estimated $74 billion to pay for well being care, a West Well being-Gallup survey discovered. And even those that profit from Undue’s debt reduction could produce other medical debt that will not be relieved.
This huge buy additionally highlights the challenges that debt collectors, hospitals, and different well being care suppliers face as sufferers rack up massive payments that are not coated by their medical health insurance.
Pendrick’s chief government, Chris Eastman, declined a number of requests to be interviewed concerning the debt sale, which has not been beforehand reported. However Eastman acknowledged in a 2024 podcast episode that amassing medical money owed has grown more difficult as regulators have restricted how collectors can pursue sufferers.
Pendrick has now shuttered, which Sesso mentioned offered sturdy motivation for this deal.
“This was a extremely nice alternative to get a debt purchaser out of the market,” she mentioned.
Undue Medical Debt pioneered its debt reduction technique a decade in the past, utilizing charitable donations to purchase medical debt from debt buying and selling corporations at steeply discounted costs after which liberating sufferers from the duty to pay.
The nonprofit now buys money owed instantly from hospitals, as nicely. And it’s working with about two dozen state and native governments to leverage public cash to alleviate medical debt in communities from Los Angeles County to Cleveland to the state of Connecticut.
The strategy has been controversial, and Undue Medical Debt’s record-setting buy — financed by a mixture of philanthropy and taxpayer {dollars} — is more likely to stoke extra debate over the worth of paying collectors for medical money owed.
“The strategy is simply treating the signs and never the illness,” mentioned Elisabeth Benjamin, a vice chairman on the Group Service Society of New York, a nonprofit that has led efforts to limit aggressive hospital collections. Benjamin and different advocates say systemic adjustments reminiscent of making certain hospitals provide ample monetary help to sufferers and reining in excessive medical costs could be extra priceless in stopping individuals from sinking into debt.
However many authorities officers see retiring individuals’s unpaid medical payments as helpful if it is half of a bigger technique for localities, states and even hospitals and well being techniques to assist sufferers keep away from debt within the first place.
“Turning off the faucet is what’s actually vital in the long term,” mentioned Naman Shah, a doctor who directs medical affairs on the Los Angeles County Division of Public Well being. To do this, the county is working to enhance native hospital monetary help applications for sufferers, so individuals do not find yourself in debt within the first place. However Shah mentioned debt reduction is essential, as nicely.
 ”It is simple to criticize band-aids if you’re not the one who’s lower,” he mentioned. “As a doctor, I deal with individuals who have cuts, and I do know the significance of sewing them again up.”
Undue Medical Debt’s newest deal, which it’s spending $36 million to shut, will assist sufferers nationwide, in accordance with the nonprofit. However about half the estimated 20 million individuals whose money owed Pendrick owned reside in simply two states: Texas or Florida.
Neither has expanded Medicaid protection by the 2010 Inexpensive Care Act, a key instrument that researchers have discovered bolsters sufferers’ monetary safety by defending them from massive medical payments and debt.
The sufferers eligible for debt reduction have incomes at or beneath 4 occasions the federal poverty stage, about $63,000 for a single particular person, or money owed that exceed 5% of their incomes.
About half the money owed are additionally greater than seven years previous. These have been donated to Undue Medical Debt by Pendrick, the group reported.
The nonprofit plans to pay for the remainder of the money owed over the following 12 months and a half, although all collections have stopped towards sufferers. It additionally plans to spend a further $40 million — or $2 an individual — to course of the money owed, discover sufferers, and inform them that their money owed have been relieved.
Sesso, Undue’s chief government, mentioned she hopes the debt buy will maintain policymakers centered on enacting longer-term options to the nation’s medical debt disaster.
She applauded state leaders for taking steps to bar medical money owed from their residents’ credit score scores. However she mentioned motion can be wanted in Washington, D.C. Nonetheless, the Trump administration has suspended laws enacted below former President Joe Biden that might have barred credit score reporting of medical debt nationally, and congressional Republicans are actually transferring to revoke the brand new guidelines.
“There’s a restrict to what state and native governments can do to resolve this drawback,” Sesso mentioned. “It is actually a nationwide drawback that must be solved on the nationwide stage.”
KFF Well being Information is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is without doubt one of the core working applications at KFF — the unbiased supply for well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism.
