Illinois medical debt relief program surpasses $1B goal in two years
The program exceeded its original goal by $400 million and cost the state less than $10 million, officials said.
- On Thursday, Governor JB Pritzker announced that Illinois' Medical Debt Relief Program has erased over $1.4 billion in medical debt for about 694,000 residents, exceeding the original $1 billion goal by $400 million.
- Launched two years ago, the initiative partners with the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt to purchase medical debt for pennies on the dollar, spending less than $10 million in state funds to achieve these results.
- The program reached residents in all 102 Illinois counties, with every state dollar invested wiping out over $100 in debt and the average recipient receiving about $1,200 in relief.
- While Pritzker expressed commitment to continuing funding despite budgeting challenges, lead researcher Neale Mahoney found that debt cancellation often has limited credit-score impact because many debts were already unreported to agencies.
- Amid federal Medicaid cuts under the Trump administration, officials plan to use data from this initiative to understand root causes of medical debt and design future policy interventions to address them.
26 Articles
26 Articles
Associated Press News
Illinois medical debt relief program surpasses $1B goal in two years
The state has erased over $1.4 billion in medical debt for almost 700,000 Illinoisans for pennies on the dollar, two years after launching a new relief program.
Illinois taxpayers foot $10M bill to forgive $1.4B in medical debt - Regional Media News
(The Center Square) - Cook County and state of Illinois officials gathered Thursday to announce roughly $1.4 billion in medical debt has been cancelled through both a state and local program for Illinois residents, but studies show that such programs may not always be beneficial. [...]
Chicago Sun Times
Illinois erases $1.4 billion in medical debt for thousands of residents
<p>A statewide effort has so far eliminated more than $1.4 billion in medical debt for thousands of Illinois residents, Gov. JB Pritzker announced Thursday at a news conference.</p><p>Pritzker touted the results of the state’s Medical Debt Relief Program, which started about <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2024/04/15/jb-pritzker-medical-debt-relief-erase-1-billion-toni-preckwinkle" target="_blank" ><u>two years ago</u…
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