The Changing Medical Debt Landscape in the United States by Urban Institute

This data tool published by the Urban Institute allows users to explore medical debt and its drivers at state and county levels, highlighting the 15 million Americans that have medical debt in collections and how the amounts they owe differ between regions. Built in SvelteKit with LayerCake, this tool includes highlighted geographies where medical debt collection has been impacted by local policy. A sidebar displays all data for a region for a selected year.

Debt data in this tool come from the Urban Institute Credit Bureau Panel and are used to calculate the median amount of medical debt in collections for a region and the share of adults in that region with medical debt in collections. Where possible, debt in a region is calculated for communities of color and white communities. Data determined to be debt drivers include hospital market concentration, hospital closures and mergers, shares of disabled adults, share of uninsured people, and average household income.