New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is urging the state Legislature to pass a package of bills aimed to "help families avoid being caught in a medical debt trap and require every medical bill to be clear and transparent," NorthJersey.com reported Jan. 9.
The governor is seeking to partner with RIP Medical Debt to relieve debts for residents, using $10 million in American Rescue Plan funds that are allocated in the current state budget.
Other measures include making medical bills more transparent and delaying providers from sending unpaid bills to collection agencies, according to the report. About 11% of state residents have medical debt that has gone to collections.
New Jersey has the fifth-worst medical debt protection policies, according to a 2022 report from Innovation for Justice, a social justice innovation lab spearheaded by Tucson-based University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law and the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business in Salt Lake City.