U.S. states confront medical debt that bankrupts millions: media

NEW YORK, April 13 (Xinhua) -- An estimated 100 million Americans have amassed nearly 200 billion U.S. dollars in collective medical debt, almost the size of Greece's economy, the Associated Press reported Thursday, citing the Kaiser Family Foundation.

"Now lawmakers in at least a dozen states and the U.S. Congress have pushed legislation to curtail the financial burden that's pushed many into untenable situations: forgoing needed care for fear of added debt, taking a second mortgage to pay for cancer treatment or slashing grocery budgets to keep up with payments," said the report.

Some of the bills would create medical debt relief programs or protect personal property from collections, while others would lower interest rates, keep medical debt from tanking credit scores or require greater transparency in the costs of care, according to the report.

For patients, medical debt has become a leading cause of personal bankruptcy, with an estimated 88 billion dollars of that debt in collections nationwide, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Roughly 530,000 people reported falling into bankruptcy annually due partly to medical bills and time away from work, the report said, citing a 2019 study from the American Journal of Public Health.