Eastern North Carolina Has High Rate of Medical Debt, Proposed Legislation Offers Relief to Hard-Hit Families
State Treasurer Dale R. Folwell, CPA, will hold a public hearing on the Medical Debt De-Weaponization Act in New Bern from 6 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 13. In the Gateway Gallery in Tryon Palace, 529 S. Front St Community members are invited to speak out to fight for change.
Treasurer Folwell will be joined by Derek Burress, Greene County commissioner; Linda Rouse Sutton, Lenoir County commissioner; and Jessica Kozma Proctor from the North Carolina Retired Governmental Employees Association. They will discuss the failures in patient protections that have helped to make Eastern North Carolina home to the worst concentration of medical debt that is placed in collections.
The new legislation, House Bill 1039, would help working families avoid financial ruin just because they got sick. It would strengthen patients’ access to charity care, limit unfair tactics in debt collection and restrict the ability of large medical facilities to charge unreasonable interest rates on medical debt.
Medical debt is crippling North Carolinians’ upward mobility and creating generational poverty in eastern North Carolina. Up to 44% of families are in medical debt collections in the counties surrounding New Bern. The average worker loses 20% of a paycheck to health care costs. Nearly 40% of Americans reported cutting back on food, utilities or gas to pay health care bills. Health care costs drove almost half of adults to report delaying or skipping necessary medical care.
North Carolina is one of the most unaffordable and monopolistic states in the nation for health care.
Too many hospitals in North Carolina have failed to equal their tax exemption with charity care spending. Instead, some hospitals billed $149 million to poor patients – or encouraged thousands of patients to open “medical credit cards” that can charge up to 18% interest on medical debt. Hospitals have even sued more than 1,000 patients for medical debt, including during the pandemic.
Too many hospitals are still hiding their prices. Patients can’t see what a procedure costs, but they’re left with little recourse when the bill comes. North Carolina currently ranks in the bottom half of states for consumer protections. The Medical Debt De-Weaponization Act would make North Carolina second in the nation for consumer protections against medical debt.
By Julie Havlak, NC Treasurer’s Office