Major deal wipes out $30 billion in medical debt

[Demovictory9]

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/04/nx-s1-5349500/major-deal-wipes-out-30-billion-in-medical-debt-even-backers-say-its-not-enough

Underscoring the massive scale of America's medical debt problem, a nonprofit has struck a deal to pay off old medical bills for an estimated 20 million people.

New York-based Undue Medical Debt, which buys patient debt, is paying off $30 billion worth of unpaid bills in a single transaction with Pendrick Capital Partners, a Virginia-based debt trading company. The average patient debt being retired is $1,100, according to Undue Medical Debt, with some reaching the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The deal will prevent the debt being sold and protect millions of people nationwide from being targeted by collectors, though this will overwhelmingly benefit residents of Texas and Florida, who account for about half of the debts being retired.

Despite the size of this deal, however, even proponents of retiring patient debt acknowledge that such purchases cannot solve a crisis that now touches around 100 million people in the U.S.