New Jersey residents getting $100 million in medical debt relief

TRENTON, N.J. - Gov. Phil Murphy announced Tuesday $100 million in medical debt will be eliminated for tens of thousands of New Jersey residents. 

As part of an initiative to make health care more affordable, New Jersey has partnered with a nonprofit called Undue Medical Debt. The state is using leftover federal pandemic money. 

"That will retire $220 million of medical debt, which in turn will impact, maybe, game-changing positive impact for 127,000 New Jersey families," Murphy said. 

There's no application process - Undue works with hospital systems like Atlantic Health to purchase bundled portfolios of past-due medical debt. The work is made possible through generous donations. 

Andrew Rose Gregory and his late wife worked with Undue to help raise more than $1 million for others. 

"Casey had ovarian cancer and died from ovarian cancer last November. She was just a brilliant book publisher," he said.   

"Real life people who are being crushed" 

Undue says it eliminated $1 billion in medical debt in 2019, and that figure has grown to $12 billion in 2024. Those who qualify are either below the poverty level or have medical debt equal to 5% or more of their annual incomes. Murphy says they'll be notified by mail. 

"These are real life people who are being crushed by medical debt," Murphy said.   

Amanda Schlesier beat stage four leukemia.

"As of last March, I am currently no evidence of disease which is the closest to remission I can get," Schlesier said. 

She is still paying down the overwhelming medical debt she incurred while living in the Garden State. 

 "It really does feel like a sword weighing over your head," Schlesier said. "I put a lot of it on my credit cards and I took out personal loans to try and pay it down."

"When you are facing life or death, you - cost doesn't matter, what you have to do to get through it. You just want to see the next day," Schlesier said. 

She said she's not sure if she'll qualify, since her debt is on credit cards, and she has since left New Jersey, but she's confident she'll pay off her debt.