AKRON, Ohio — The city of Akron has set aside $500,000 of American Rescue Plan Act funds to help some residents get rid of their medical debt. It’s a move other cities like Toledo and Chicago have made and one that cities like Cleveland are considering.
Nancy Holland, Akron’s Ward 1 councilperson, proposed the resolution a couple of months ago.
“Four in 10 Americans are carrying substantial medical debt,” she said. “The people of Akron need this help.”
A group of medical students consistently showed up to council meetings over the last couple of months, verbalized to council members just how big of an impact medical debt can have on a community, and leaders listened.
“It wasn’t even on our radar. We didn’t even know we could make this type of impact using ARPA dollars,” said Akron City Council President Margo Sommerville.
Council passed Holland’s resolution a few weeks ago and urged Mayor Dan Horrigan to reflect the resolution’s allocation of funds in the city’s budget. Monday, the budget did just that: set aside $500,000 for medical debt relief.
Residents like Jacob Nash are encouraged by the news.
“I, myself, have a stack of medical bills that I literally don’t know how I’m going to pay for because I have a lot of medical conditions. I have heart failure, I’ve got kidney disease, I have lung disease, and on and on and on,” said Nash. “When we get the bills from the hospital and then the bills from the doctor and then bills from the anesthesiologist, you know, because they are always separate bills on things, they can pile up. It just feels like you’re sinking deeper and deeper in debt and how do you get out of that?”
Amanda Markovich, another Akron resident, agreed.
“I’m on limited funds and people who are in similar situations, I think it’s going to help them quite a lot,” she said.
Holland hopes to work with the non-profit organization RIP Medical Debt. The group partners with local hospitals and for every dollar put towards helping people with debt, the non-profit claims 100-plus dollars can be used to retire outstanding debt.
If true, the $500,000 of ARPA funds could, hypothetically, retire 50 million dollars of outstanding bills.
“There’s nothing that an individual or family needs to do. This will be something that is identified by existing data,” said Holland.
She said people who qualify have to be at or below 400% of the poverty line and carry debt at or above 5% of their annual income.
“Hopefully there will be a day very soon when folks who qualify for this program will take the mail out of their mailbox, and the letter will arrive that says your debt has been retired,” said Holland.
When that is, Holland and Sommerville aren’t exactly sure but said they’re committed to putting in the work to get the system up and running.
“We’ve got to work with our local hospitals, making sure to get them on board to make sure it’s a success,” said Sommerville.
They also plan to seek additional funding for medical debt relief, including asking Summit County leaders to match the allocation set aside.
“If we cannot gather more city money for this then we can partner, as the city of Toledo did with Lucas County, with Summit County, and with other area charitable organizations to get further, larger seed money together,” said Holland.
Sommerville called it a return on investment.
“Forty-nine percent of Akron residents are renters. Many of them probably want to be homeowners, but maybe credit is holding them back, maybe they filed bankruptcy, and maybe it is connected to medical debt. I think when we talk about those things, we can really see the opportunity and how this is truly a game changer for residents in Akron,” said Sommerville.
Nash echoed her sentiment.
“When the city invests its money into its community, into its Akronites, then we want to stay here. We want to live here. We want to pour our money into the city,” he said.
Holland said the city would let residents know as soon as the program is live.
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