A Cook County initiative to address the effects of medical debt has so far erased more than $25 million in past-due bills and is expected to wipe out about $55 million more in the coming weeks for 73,000 county residents total, officials told the Tribune.
The first round of debt-buying has spent down just $800,000 of the county’s allotted $12 million for the federal funded program. OfficialsIn July, the Cook County Board approved President Toni Preckwinkle’s proposal to spend $12 million of the county’s $1 billion allotted American Rescue Plan funds for the program through the end of 2024. The COVID-19 relief ARPA dollars must be spent by the end of 2026.
“Medical debt is a real problem for low-income families, particularly in communities of color. It’s not just a debt burden and a complication and a negative impact on their credit rating, but it’s also likely that people don’t pursue other medical care given that they already have this medical debt burden,” Preckwinkle said. “So it’s a fiscal challenge, one of the principal reasons for bankruptcy in this country. It negatively impacts people’s credit scores, and it’s a health care challenge.
RIP Medical Debt President and CEO Allison Sesso said, “Hospitals are bureaucracies, so it does take some time to weed our way through those bureaucracies. And so it’s really hard to predict how long it will take to get approvals” from legal, financial and board officials. Asked whether the county could spend the $12 million allotted in time, Sesso said, “Absolutely. … It takes a little while to get the hospitals warmed up, but once you get revving, and we have, you get there pretty quickly. I do feel like it’s sort of a domino effect. When the first falls, the others sort of follow.
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