Nearly 70,000 Massachusetts residents will be freed this week from unpaid medical bills. The Boston-based Atrius Health Equity Foundation, together with the New York-based organization Undue Medical Debt, is forgiving medical debt totaling $38 million.
The program benefits people who earn less than $64,000 a year, or whose medical debt amounts to at least 5% of their annual income. No application is required. People whose debt is being forgiven will receive a letter in the mail from Undue Medical Debt saying that all or part of what they owed has been wiped out. It is worth going through your mail carefully.
The program has operated since 2024 and has so far erased more than $293 million in debt in the state. In June of this year alone, $170 million was forgiven, helping more than 140,000 residents.
Dr. Ann Hwang, head of the Atrius foundation, stresses that medical debt is the leading cause of personal bankruptcies in the U.S. and that in Massachusetts it affects one in eight residents. She points out that it is rarely debt taken on by choice, and that people fall into it because they got sick. According to Hwang, debt also discourages patients from continuing treatment, which takes a toll on their health.
Source: WBUR
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