Diagnosis: Debt

Patient and consumer advocates fear a new Trump administration will scale back federal efforts to expand financial protections for patients and shield them from debt.

KFF Health News staff made the rounds on national and local media in the last two weeks to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.

The Biden administration has taken significant steps to address a problem that burdens 100 million people in America, but gains would be jeopardized by a Trump win, advocates say.

In red and blue states, state lawmakers from both parties are expanding protections for patients burdened by medical debt.

New California legislation will bar unpaid medical bills from showing up on consumer credit reports starting in January. However, the banking industry muscled in eleventh-hour amendments that weakened the protections for patients, the bill’s lead sponsor says.

The state has among the highest levels of medical debt in the country, data shows.

State officials threatened to withhold public money from hospitals, pioneering a strategy that could become a national model.

A decades-old manufacturing company opened a clinic and made primary care and prescriptions free for employees and their families.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed federal regulations that would prevent unpaid medical bills from being counted on consumers’ credit reports.

Most U.S. hospitals aggressively pursue patients for unpaid bills. One New York hospital system decided to work with them instead.

Millions of new parents in the U.S. are swamped by medical debt during and after pregnancy, forcing many to cut back on food, clothing, and other essentials.

Colorado is ahead of the curve on policies to prevent medical debt, but the gap between the debt load in places inhabited primarily by people of color versus non-Hispanic white residents is greater than the national average.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created after the Great Recession of 2007-09, has increasingly started policing the health care system.

New York City is the latest jurisdiction to buy and forgive a backlog of unpaid medical bills for its residents. Local governments across the country, including in the Chicago area, are doing the same to reduce debt burdens for lower-income residents.

Hospitals nationwide face growing scrutiny over how they secure payment from patients, but at one community hospital, the debt collection machine has been quietly humming along for decades.

An award-winning project by KFF Health News and NPR found that at least 100 million people in the United States are saddled with medical bills they cannot pay — and exposed a health care system that systematically pushes people into debt.

A chronic health diagnosis and medical debt reordered Sharon Woodward’s life.

As credit rating agencies have removed small unpaid medical bills from consumer credit, scores have gone up, a new study finds.

The White House said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will develop new regulations that would prevent unpaid medical bills from being counted on credit reports.

An analysis of court records by the state treasurer and Duke researchers finds Atrium Health, originally a public hospital system, accounted for almost a third of the legal actions against North Carolina patients over roughly five years.

Within two years of North Carolina’s public university system going into business with AccessOne to finance patients’ payment plans, nearly half of its patients were in loans that charged interest. As federal scrutiny increases on lenders, KFF Health News is sharing that contract and others obtained through public records requests.

Doctors and hospitals hold an exalted position in American life, retaining public confidence even as other institutions such as government, law enforcement, and the media are losing people’s trust. But with health care debt out of hand, medical providers risk their good standing.

Kristie Fields, a cancer patient in Virginia, was urged to go public to seek financial help. She worried about feeding hurtful stereotypes.

In a new report, Human Rights Watch urges stronger federal and state action to hold hospitals to account for a medical debt crisis that now burdens more than 100 million Americans.

The “Diabetes Belt,” as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, comprises 644 mostly Southern counties where diabetes rates are high. Of those counties, KFF Health News and NPR found, more than half also have high levels of medical debt.

Americans paid an estimated $1 billion in deferred interest on medical debt in just three years, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reports. The agency warns against medical credit cards, which are often pitched right in doctors’ offices.

Consumer and patient advocates push for new federal rules to protect Americans from debt collectors and force hospitals to make financial assistance more accessible.

A youth mental health crisis and a shortage of therapists and other care providers who take insurance are pushing many families into financial ruin. But it’s rarely acknowledged as medical debt.

New policies to prevent unpaid medical bills from harming people’s credit scores are on the way. But the concessions made by top credit reporting companies may fall short for those with the largest debt — especially Black Americans in the South.