Secretary of Health and Human Services Kody Kinsley on addressing NC’s medical debt crisis

News & Views

Kody Kinsley, secretary of the NC Department of Health and Human Services. (Photo: DHHS)

It’s a sobering fact that one of the largest sources of consumer debt in North Carolina and across the nation is unpaid medical bills. Of course, no one gets sick or accumulates healthcare debt on purpose, but for most average households – including those with health insurance coverage – even a brief hospital stay can generate massive bills that can be all but impossible to pay off. This fact has led to North Carolinians having billions of dollars of medical debt hanging over their heads.

Happily, and to its great credit, however, Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration is doing something about the problem. It recently unveiled an innovative program under which all of the state’s hospitals will forgive billions of dollars in consumer debt in exchange for some new reimbursements from the federal government. It’s a true-win-win situation for all involved and recently we got a chance to have an extended conversation with the administration official behind this exciting, first-of-its kind initiative, state Health and Human Services Secretary, Kody Kinsley.

In Part One of our recent extended conversation with North Carolina’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kody Kinsley, we discussed the subject of medical debt and the exciting new initiative his office has spearheaded to get the state’s hospitals to forgive billions of dollars of debt and provide millions of North Carolinians with a fresh start.

In Part Two of our conversation, we turned our attention to another pair of timely topics from the world of health and healthcare – the encouraging progress the state is making in enrolling hundreds of thousands of people in the newly expanded Medicaid program, and the continued importance of vaccines in safeguarding public health – both to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and any number of other dangerous diseases (from measles to Mpox). This is a rebroadcast of an interview that originally aired September 1, 2024.