One candidate for Tennessee Governor has a clear plan to offer relief from medical debt for Tennessee families.
In fact, she’s already taking action to make it a reality.
Jerri Green writes about what she’s doing in Memphis to provide medical debt relief and about her Day One plan to eliminate medical debt for more than 100,000 Tennesseans.
As a Memphis City Councilwoman, I am sponsoring a resolution to use community grant funds to support medical-debt relief in conjunction with Undue Medical Debt, a non-profit organization whose purpose is to strengthen communities by erasing financially burdensome medical bills. I believe it demonstrates what is possible when government thinks creatively about how to use public dollars to help families.
Here is what makes the proposal so powerful: with an investment of just $159,202.77, we can eliminate more than $17 million in qualifying medical debt for approximately 12,169 Memphis-area residents living in or near poverty.
And, Green says her Day One plan as Tennessee’s next Governor includes taking immediate action to wipe out medical debt:
Tennessee has the ability to take this concept statewide. My Day One plan calls for using $10 million in TANF funds to buy and erase medical debt for more than 100,000 Tennesseans.
The principle is straightforward: use resources that are already available to help Tennessee families who are struggling, leverage those dollars through organizations that can purchase qualifying debt at a fraction of its face value, and eliminate the debt rather than forcing families to spend years trying to pay it off.
Green’s plan is based on efforts that have worked successfully around the country.
