Americans are knee-deep in medical debt and most of that debt is owed to hospitals, with minority and low-income patients dealing with a disproportionate amount of it, according to a March 18 Washington Post report.
Respondents whose incomes were at or below the federal poverty level — $12,880 for an individual and $26,500 for a family of four — reported the most debt, the report said. 26.4 percent of them were overdue on a medical bill, while that number fell as incomes rose.
And while 12.8 percent of white participants in the survey were past due on their bills, 19.1 percent of Hispanic patients were overdue. That number rose to 25.9 percent for black patients.
Almost 75 percent of the 15.4 percent of respondents who reported having past-due medical debt in the report from The Urban Institute owed some of their debts to hospitals, and of the medical debt belonging to the lowest income people, 79.7 percent was owed to hospitals.
“We see that individuals with disabilities, and Black and Latino adults are disproportionately represented among adults carrying past-due medical debt,” Gina Hijjawi, senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which partnered with the Urban Institute on the research, said in a statement.
More details on the report, which surveyed 9,494 adults ages 18 to 64, can be found here.
Editor's note: This article previously said that almost 75 percent of survey respondents with past-due medical debt owed some or all of that debt to hospitals. It should have said that almost 75 percent of the 15.4 percent of respondents who reported having past-due medical debt owed some of their debts to hospitals. This article has been updated to reflect that correction.