An estimated 17.8% of United States adults had debt that stemmed from medical care before the COVID-19 pandemic, an analysis of consumer credit reports showed.
Despite “widespread concern” surrounding medical debt, there has been little research into recent trends in medical debt, its distribution across the population and how health policy has affected the distribution, Raymond P. Kluender, PhD, an assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, and colleagues wrote in JAMA.
The researchers analyzed data from a nationally representative 10% sample of