Vice President Harris wants to forgive medical debt

Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic plan calls for forgiving medical debt for as many as 15 million Americans, reports Annie Nova for CNBC. Americans should not go bankrupt because they need medical care, says Harris. She wants to erase much of the more than $220 billion in medical debt.

Harris’ campaign has not laid out any of the details for how she would cancel medical debt. For sure, the government would need to be involved. Today, about 14 million Americans owe at least $1,000 in medical debt. The American Rescue Plan, which became law during the Covid pandemic, provides local governments with the ability to buy and cancel nearly $7 billion in medical debt by December 2026 for about three million Americans.

A majority of Americans (51 percent) believe it is very important for our government to forgive medical debt. Medical debt drives inequities in society and creates impediments to prosperity. It also can deter people from getting further medical care. Older adults alone owe more than $54 billion in medical debt.

Donald Trump has never suggested that he would cancel medical debt. He simply has called for more health care price transparency. And, he has called for repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which has reduced the number of uninsured Americans by more than 20 million and prevents insurers from denying health insurance coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. The Congressional Budget Office found that repealing the Affordable Care Act would quickly lead to 27 million Americans losing their insurance coverage and those with insurance coverage seeing their premiums doubled.

The Biden Administration has been working to eliminate medical debt from people’s credit reports. And, medical debt under $500 is no longer appearing on people’s credit reports. Vice President Harris wants to eliminate all medical debt from people’s credit reports.

In an interview with Ady Barkan about health care, Harris says “Access to health care should be a human right.” She describes the lunch at which her mom told her that she had been diagnosed with colon cancer and the inhumanity of our health care system, which is so expensive and challenging to navigate.

Here’s more from Just Care:

• New bill in Congress would cancel medical debt
• Poll: More than forty percent of adults have medical debt
• Beware of debt collectors: John Oliver
• Older adults owe $54 billion in medical debt
• Congressional Budget Office reports benefits of Medicare for all over corporate health insurance