Mayor Adams, along with Department of Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, today announced a pioneering medical debt relief program for New Yorkers.
It will have an investment of 18 million dollars over three years that will alleviate more than 2 billion dollars in medical debt for hundreds of thousands of residents.
This type of debt is the leading cause of bankruptcies in the United States, disproportionately affecting uninsured, underinsured, and low-income households.
The program would eliminate the debt of up to 500 thousand people for one time.
For this plan, the city will partner with RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit organization that specializes in purchasing and eliminating medical debt.
According to them, there is no registration process and the beneficiaries will be notified.
They also indicated that it is the largest municipal initiative of its type in the country and that it will be launched this year.
