Sanders calls for eliminating Americans’ medical debt

WASHINGTON >> Bernie Sanders long has wanted to remake the health care system so no one will have to pay directly for medical care again. Now he also wants to go back and cancel all the medical debts of people who have been billed under the current system.

In a plan released Saturday, Sanders, the Vermont senator and presidential candidate, proposes wiping out an estimated $81 billion in existing debt and changing rules around debt collection and bankruptcy. He also calls for replacing the giant credit reporting agencies with a “public credit registry” that would ignore medical debt when calculating credit scores.

The proposals reflect Sanders’ concern that the medical system has placed financial hardships on too many Americans, by discouraging them from seeking needed medical care but also by saddling them with expensive and unfair bills that can harm their financial security, ding their credit and, in some cases, lead to bankruptcy.

The plan is Sanders’ latest effort to transform the health care system in America, a goal on which he has staked not just his second presidential run but much of his political legacy. He is the first top-tier contender to call for such drastic measures on medical debt.

“We’re addressing it on both ends,” Sanders said. “We’re addressing it now by trying to help the people who have past due medical bills. And we’re addressing it by finally creating a health care system that guarantees coverage to people without any premiums, without any deductibles, without any out-ofpocket expenses.”

Though eliminating every American’s medical debt probably would not come cheap, Sanders’ plan could wind up costing far less than the total amount of debt he is seeking to cancel. Craig Antico, a founder of the charity RIP Medical Debt, which buys and forgives medical debt, estimated that the market price for $81 billion in debt could be as low as $500 million. Most past-due medical debt never gets paid, which is why bill collectors are often willing to sell the debts for pennies on the dollar.

The plan also would create a public credit rating agency to “replace” forprofit companies like Equifax, and it would exclude medical debts from credit ratings. It would establish a new legal process, managed by the bankruptcy court system, to help adjudicate medical debts that are not yet in collections.