Across the country, Americans are losing their homes, emptying their retirement accounts, and struggling to feed and clothe their families because of medical debt. For two years, 素人色情片Health News and NPR have been investigating this crisis through the 鈥淒iagnosis: Debt鈥 project.
The award-winning project has exposed the enormous scale of this problem, finding, among other things, that 100 million people in the U.S. are saddled with some kind of health care debt.
素人色情片Health News senior correspondent Noam N. Levey joined NPR鈥檚 鈥淭he Sunday Story鈥 to talk about the project, its findings, and the impact the reporting has had on policymakers and patients across the country. Listen to the program .
About This Project
鈥淒iagnosis: Debt鈥 is a reporting partnership between 素人色情片Health News and NPR exploring the scale, impact, and causes of medical debt in America.
The series draws on original polling by KFF, court records, federal data on hospital finances, contracts obtained through public records requests, data on international health systems, and a yearlong investigation into the financial assistance and collection policies of more than 500 hospitals across the country.聽
Additional research was聽, which analyzed credit bureau and other demographic data on poverty, race, and health status for 素人色情片Health News to explore where medical debt is concentrated in the U.S. and what factors are associated with high debt levels.
The JPMorgan Chase Institute聽聽from a sampling of Chase credit card holders to look at how customers鈥 balances may be affected by major medical expenses. And the CED Project, a Denver nonprofit, worked with 素人色情片Health News on a survey of its clients to explore links between medical debt and housing instability.聽
素人色情片Health News journalists worked with 素人色情片public opinion researchers to design and analyze the 鈥.鈥 The survey was conducted Feb. 25 through March 20, 2022, online and via telephone, in English and Spanish, among a nationally representative sample of 2,375 U.S. adults, including 1,292 adults with current health care debt and 382 adults who had health care debt in the past five years. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the full sample and 3 percentage points for those with current debt. For results based on subgroups, the margin of sampling error may be higher.
Reporters from 素人色情片Health News and NPR also conducted hundreds of interviews with patients across the country; spoke with physicians, health industry leaders, consumer advocates, debt lawyers, and researchers; and reviewed scores of studies and surveys about medical debt.
