Residents could see $153M in medical debt erased under new partnership in Milwaukee

1/17/2023

“As ARPA Task Force co-chair, I sifted through a lot of the proposals that we’ve seen, and this to me checks all the boxes, and the scale of positive change that this can create is something that I have not seen replicated across other ideas,” he said.

Milwaukee County has about $15.6 million in undesignated ARPA funds, the federal pandemic assistance that allocated a total of $183.6 million to Milwaukee County under the American Rescue Plan Act, according to a county online dashboard.

Milwaukee County’s ARPA Task Force will take up the resolution on Thursday. If approved it would go to the full County Board.

RIP Medical Debt — with donations from like of comedian John Oliver and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — buys eligible patients’ medical debts from hospitals, health systems and debt collection agencies and then pays off any overdue bills, eliminating any long-delinquent debt.

A $10 donation can buy and eliminate $1,000 in debt, according to RIP Medical Debt.

To be eligible, residents must have a household income up to 400% of the federal poverty level — or roughly $111,000 for a family of four, and $54,360 for a family of one — and have medical debts totaling at least 5% of the individuals’ household income.

“We see this as as a win-win-win situation,” David Eager, an ambassador for RIP Medical Debt and former CFO for Aurora Health Care, told the Journal Sentinel.

Full Link ( Msn ) Here