American health care is too expensive. Exhibit A is a new study of Americans’ medical debt published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That debt is twice as large as had previously been estimated — $140 billion in collections as of June 2020, compared to an earlier estimate of $81 billion. And it disproportionately affects the dozen states like Missouri that have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
Despite a referendum that approved Medicaid expansion, and the fact that the federal government would have paid 90% of the cost, Missouri legislators refused to expand Medicaid during their last session. By doing so, they turned down a $10-to-$1 federal match on the cost of expanding Medicaid, and likely consigned more Missourians to bankruptcy.
One out of 6 Americans, roughly 18% of the population, had medical debt being pursued by collectors during June 2020. Millions more owe medical debt that hasn’t yet been sent to collections, either because they are making payments or because they paid their medical debts with high interest credit cards.
