SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) — Gov. JB Pritzker hopes to eliminate $4 billion of medical debt for 1 million Illinoisans over the next four years. The Democrat wants state lawmakers to approve $10 million in the next budget to eliminate $1 billion of medical debt during Fiscal Year 2025.
Nearly 340,000 low-income people in Illinois could have their medical debt paid off during the first year of Pritzker's plan. The progressive idea is one of the governor's top priorities going into budget negotiations during the final weeks of the spring session.
"Across our nation, individuals and their families are forced to reckon with near impossible financial choices as the price tag on healthcare continues to increase," Pritzker told reporters in Chicago Monday. "When an emergency arises, the cost of care is not an optional expense."
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Pritzker said this plan would only cost around a penny for every dollar of medical debt the state eliminates. The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services could partner with the national nonprofit organization Undue Medical Debt to make this possible.Â
Undue Medical Debt acquires medical debts from people four times or below the federal poverty level and anyone whose medical debt is 5% or more of their annual income.
"The stress and strain of mounting medical debt on top of a healthcare challenge could significantly and adversely affect an individual's overall financial well-being, increasing their likelihood of bankruptcy, and even make them reconsider seeking future medical care," said Elizabeth Whitehorn, Director of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services.
The Pritzker administration said 14% of people in Illinois struggle with medical debt in default. However, nearly 20% of the state's communities of color experience extreme medical debt.
"It's also not just harmful to people with low income," said Audra Wilson, President and CEO of the Shriver Center on Poverty Law. "We're talking about households with health insurance and even middle income struggle underneath the weight of medical debt. It is crushing. It is massive, and that is why this initiative is so significant."
Loyola Medicine also announced Monday that the hospital system will forgive over $112 million in medical debt for past and current patients. Pritzker said that could help more than 60,000 people in Illinois.
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