Harris is wrong about medical debt

Is Vice President Kamala Harris trying to rebrand as a centrist? She has recently disavowed her previous progressive positions on everything from border security to fracking to "Medicare for All."

But she and her running mate remain enthusiastic about socializing medical debt. In a recent statement , Harris claimed that "more than 100 million Americans struggle with medical debt" and thus can't afford loans for their cars, houses, and businesses.

Such rhetoric doesn't reflect reality.

Start with that 100 million figure. It's from a 2022 KFF poll and includes people who are paying medical bills on their credit cards or debt they owe to a family member or friend.

Other estimates are wildly different. The KFF-Peterson Health System Tracker looked at census data as of December 2021 and found that roughly 20 million U.S. adults have medical debt.

Regardless, most people with medical debt are not saddled with five- or six-figure bills. The KFF-Peterson analysis reported that 6 million owe $1,000 or less. Just under half of people with medical debt have bills no higher than $2,000. Fewer than 3 million owe more than $10,000.

The 2022 KFF survey data are in the same ballpark . More than half of those who said they had medical debt owed less than $2,500, while just 12% said they owed more than $10,000.

No one likes paying bills. But that doesn't mean taxpayers should have to cover them.

Consider that the average "consumer unit" spent more than $580 on alcohol in 2022, more than $3,600 eating out, and $866 on "personal care products and services," according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

When taxpayers are called upon to absorb the debts of others, should they also get to audit the debtors' other spending, too?

Research shows that canceling medical debt does not deliver the boost that Harris implies. An April National Bureau of Economic Research paper found "no improvements in financial well-being or mental health from medical debt relief, reduced repayment of medical bills, and, if anything, a perverse worsening of mental health."

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Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), are not interested in such research. She has openly boasted that the administration has used taxpayer resources to forgive over $650 million in medical debt. She aims to spend a total of $7 billion in taxpayer money on canceling medical debt by 2026.

Harris may be trying to sound centrist. Her views on medical debt prove she's anything but.

Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith fellow in healthcare policy at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is False Premise, False Promise: The Disastrous Reality of Medicare for All (Encounter 2020). Follow her on X @sallypipes .