{"id":25468,"date":"2026-01-21T10:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T15:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/?p=25468"},"modified":"2026-01-21T10:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T15:18:14","slug":"how-north-carolina-erased-medical-debt-for-2-5-million-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/?p=25468","title":{"rendered":"How North Carolina erased medical debt for 2.5 million people"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>(By Alex Olgin for NPR)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a routine trip to her mailbox, Dawn Daly-Mack almost threw away an important letter that she thought was junk mail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I opened it up and it said, &#8216;Your medical bill has been paid,'&#8221; says Daly-Mack, 60, who lives in Gaston, in northeastern North Carolina. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t believe it.&#8221;  Continue reading <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2026\/01\/21\/nx-s1-5678541\/north-carolina-undue-medical-debt-erased\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2026\/01\/21\/nx-s1-5678541\/north-carolina-undue-medical-debt-erased\">here&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"54\" class=\"wp-image-3902\" style=\"width: 150px;\" src=\"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/NPR-logo.png\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/NPR-logo.png 152w, https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/NPR-logo-150x55.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>Notice:<\/strong>\u00a0The link provided above connects readers to the full content of the posted article. The URL (internet address) for this link is valid on the posted date; medicarereport.org cannot guarantee the duration of the link\u2019s validity. Also, the opinions expressed in these postings are the viewpoints of the original source and are not explicitly endorsed by AMAC, Inc.; the AMAC Foundation, Inc.; or medicarereport.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(By Alex Olgin for NPR) After a routine trip to her mailbox, Dawn Daly-Mack almost threw away an important letter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,56],"tags":[385,216],"class_list":["post-25468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-care-finance","category-medical-debt","tag-healthcare-costs","tag-medical-debt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25469,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25468\/revisions\/25469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}