AHA blog: High-deductible and skinny health insurance plans drive medical debt

A recent Urban Institute report highlighting medical debt fails to examine how inadequate health coverage drives this debt, writes Molly Smith, AHA’s group vice president of public policy. “As the extent of medical debt shows, both the government and the private market is failing too many patients, leaving too many either uninsured or with subpar plans that expose too many people to bills they cannot afford to pay,” she writes. “While hospital financial assistance is crucial to helping many individuals of limited means access care, it is no substitute for a solution that gets to the root causes of medical debt.” READ MORE