These Alabama workers were swamped by medical debt. Then their employer stepped in.

Like most medical offices, the small suite of exam rooms at the PhiferCares Clinic fills daily with patients seeking help with bumps and bruises, sore throats, and stuffy noses. But there's an important difference about this clinic in central Alabama: No one gets a bill, including for prescriptions. That's because the clinic is owned by a manufacturing company with a specific agenda.

"We don't want you to spend money on health care," said Russell DuBose, vice president of human resources at Phifer. Phifer, a global manufacturer of window screens, opened the clinic five years ago in a bid to control its health care costs and stop big medical bills from driving its workers into debt. The strategy has paid big dividends.

Phifer has saved so much on health care that the company was able to open a free summer camp for the children of employees. Workers have dramatically boosted retirement savings, too. And Phifer is now adding chiropractic care and orthotics, all at no cost to workers.

Benefits like these remain out of reach for most U.S. workers, millions of whom drain savings, take out second mortgages, or cut back on food and other essentials to stay ahead of health care debt.

Overall, about 100 million people in the U.S. are burdened by some form of this debt, KFF Health News has found.

Many of those people have health plans through employers who, unable to control their health care costs, now force workers to pay thousands of dollars out-of-pocket when they go to a doctor. Ph.