CHICAGO, Ill. (WTVO) — Nearly 700,000 Illinois residents have had more than $1.4 billion in medical debt erased through a state-funded relief program launched two years ago, Gov. JB Pritzker announced Thursday.
According to the governor’s office, the Illinois Medical Debt Relief Program has eliminated medical debt for more than 694,000 people in all 102 counties, exceeding its initial goal of erasing $1 billion in debt by more than $400 million.
The program works by purchasing bundles of medical debt on the secondary debt market, where unpaid medical bills are often sold for pennies on the dollar. Because debt buyers typically pay only a fraction of the debt’s face value, the state has been able to eliminate more than $1.4 billion in…