{"id":868817,"date":"2026-10-03T00:16:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T00:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/868817\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T00:16:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T00:16:18","slug":"letters-announcing-medical-debt-relief-arrive-as-a-welcome-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/868817\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters announcing medical-debt relief arrive as a welcome surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Americans owe $220 billion in medical debt, according to a federal survey<\/a>. It\u2019s one reason health care and affordability are key issues in the upcoming midterm elections and top of mind for people like Brittany Gurney.<\/p>\n

In September of 2020, her 14-month-old son Jaxon was rushed to the hospital with a bowel obstruction that required nine surgeries in three months and a lengthy stay in the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo this day, the surgeon has no idea why it happened,\u201d said Gurney, a divorced mother of two from Mesa, Arizona.<\/p>\n

The medical emergency came as a surprise, and Gurney knew the ordeal would be expensive, even with health insurance. Her portion of the $2 million hospital bill came out to $15,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t do that,\u201d Gurney recalled thinking when she got the bill. \u201cI\u2019ve just missed so much work.\u201d<\/p>\n

At first, she paid whatever she could afford, maybe $50 a month. But the bills piled up, and she couldn\u2019t pay. The debt went to collections. Her credit score fell 300 points. And then, one day earlier this year, a letter arrived in the mail.<\/p>\n

It said her remaining debt had been forgiven. \u201cI thought it was fake,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The letter came from a nonprofit called Undue Medical Debt. The group buys up bundles of debt for pennies on the dollar.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne dollar gets rid of $100 of medical debt,\u201d said CEO Allison Sesso. \u201cPeople not believing the letter is one of the biggest problems that we have. So if you get one of these letters, look for it and believe it. It’s real.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sesso said buying bundles of cheap debt is possible because debt collectors know that for most people, the ability to pay the full amount is \u201cvery low or non-existent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medical debt is common in this country. Up to 100 million Americans, or 41% of adults, have racked up unpaid medical bills, according to a 2022 investigation<\/a> by KFF News and NPR.<\/p>\n

Sesso said recent actions by Congress will make the problem worse. Cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act will reduce access to health insurance<\/a> for millions of people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not the fault of the individual,\u201d she added. \u201cIt\u2019s really a broken system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across the country, states like Delaware, Connecticut and New Jersey have paired up with Sesso\u2019s group to take a bite out of the problem.<\/p>\n

\"KentuckyKentucky Gov. Andy Beshear speaks during an event titled “How Democrats Can Connect with America” at the Center for American Progress on February 19, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear announced last month<\/a> the state would spend $2.5 million to cancel medical debt for 130,000 people. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat up for re-election, said she\u2019d spend $10 million of unused pandemic relief money to do the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs costs rise across the board due to senseless policies from Washington, this program is giving so many Arizonans the relief that they deserve,\u201d said Hobbs at a press conference in August with Gurney standing by her side.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers from both parties have tried to rein in medical debt, and polls show it is a bipartisan concern. But it\u2019s unclear how much impact debt cancelation has on people\u2019s lives, said Wesley Yin, an economist at the University of California, Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

He and a team of researchers analyzed financial data from a large pool of people who received medical debt relief. The research found<\/a> access to credit improved about 10%, \u201ca modest but sizable impact,\u201d Yin said. However, he added that debt collectors have become less likely to report medical debt to credit agencies, which reduces the impact.<\/p>\n

Yin said that people who receive medical debt relief also tend to accrue more medical debt.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most surprising, Yin said his team\u2019s research didn\u2019t reveal any lasting emotional benefits. \u201cWe show no measurable impacts on depression, anxiety, self-reported sense of well-being,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Those findings came from a limited number of surveys, but it\u2019s possible that canceling years-old debt that people never planned to repay anyway is less impactful than offering financial assistance<\/a> when they arrive at the hospital, Yin said.<\/p>\n

In other words, debt forgiveness doesn\u2019t address the root cause.<\/p>\n

Six years after his life-or-death medical crisis, Jaxon, Gurney\u2019s son, is healthy. Working for a hospital, she understands the structural issues behind ballooning medical debt. Americans spend more on health care<\/a> than any other wealthy country, and having insurance does not fully protect people from the mounting costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a difficult topic because there\u2019s no fixing it,\u201d Gurney said. \u201cIt\u2019s really all about money, and you can\u2019t defeat it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, she\u2019s grateful for the doctors who saved her son\u2019s life and for the debt relief that came years later. \u201cThere’s definitely light at the end of the tunnel,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Here & Now\u2019s Ashley Locke<\/a> contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Americans owe $220 billion in medical debt, according to a federal survey. It\u2019s one reason health care and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-868817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}