On March 30, 2019, a swerving car upended Tom Burke's life. Severely injured after the crash, Burke was airlifted from the Fort Liberty U.S.
Army base in North Carolina to UNC Medical Center, in Chapel Hill, where doctors performed surgeries to rebuild his leg. Medicaid covered most of the cost, but Burke was still left with more than $10,000 in bills. He was confined to a wheelchair for two years after the accident, unable to work his car sales job.
As a result, he said, he couldn't pay the outstanding hospital bill and his account was turned over to a collection agency. Since then, he and his wife repeatedly tried to buy a house. But because of damage to his credit score, mortgage companies repeatedly turned them down.
"We were forced into homelessness for a time," said Burke, whose family moved from North Carolina to Missouri in 2020. "For everything we need credit for, we're screwed." Burke is among millions of people burdened by medical debt, a nationwide problem that surveys and data suggest is particularly acute in North Carolina.
Using credit bureau data, the nonprofit Urban Institute calculated that more than 8% of North Carolina consumers had an unpaid medical bill on their credit report in 2023, compared with 5% nationally. In fact, only Oklahoma, Wyoming, South Carolina, and Texas had higher levels of medical debt on credit reports than North Carolina, researchers found. Nationally, 41% of adults — or about 100 million people — have some kind of health care de.
