Jared Walker, Founder of Dollar For (www.dollarfor.org) joined me for this critical discussion on the medical debt crisis! Jared inspires me every single day and he should inspire you as well...
Nationally, 17.8 percent of people with a credit report as of 2020 had medical debt in collections, and 13 percent had accrued debt in the prior year but were not yet in collections. Of those who had medical debt, the average amount was $2,424 last year. These findings are roughly in line with previous Census Bureau estimates.
The South has the most people with medical debts, or 23.8 percent of all residents, and the largest average amounts past due, as of 2020. The Northeast had the lowest debt loads, with 10.8 percent of individuals with credit reports in arrears, and the smallest unpaid tabs. People living in low-income areas owed the most, while those residing in high-income regions owed the least.
States that expanded Medicaid in 2014 saw a decline in the average yearly accrual of medical debt through 2020 that was 34 percentage points greater than states that did not expand their Medicaid rolls.
Almost all income groups in non-Medicaid expansion states saw their medical debts rise annually from 2009 to 2020. The poorest communities were most affected: In 2020, they added $836 on average in new medical debt per capita, up from an annual amount of $630 in 2009.
Between 2009 and 2020, total medical debt in collections decreased less than reductions in nonmedical debt. By 2020, individuals had more medical debt in collections than they had in debt in collections from all other sources combined, including credit cards, phone bills, and utilities.
The above statistics provided by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research who indicated that the nationwide medical debt estimate is probably larger than $140 billion.
