TOLEDO, Ohio — Toledo City Council pushed Tuesday's vote on a plan to use federal coronavirus relief money to help pay off medical debt for local residents to the Nov. 9 council meeting because District 3 representative and co-sponsor Theresa Gadus was sick and unable to attend the meeting, Council Member Michele Grim said.
Grim proposed the measure in September, saying that the city should not miss a chance to eliminate medical debt for pennies on the dollar.
District 1 representative John Hobbs and at-large Council Member Nick Komives are also co-sponsors and were present at Tuesday's meeting, as well as Grim.
The proposal calls for spending $1.4 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding to relieve medical debt.
The proposal has been pushed back twice prior to Tuesday's meeting "to discuss possible changes with my colleagues," Grim said.
About 25,000 Toledo residents qualify for the proposed debt relief. Residents would be eligible if their medical debt is greater than 5 percent of their income or if they make less than four times the federal poverty level. For a household of two people, the federal poverty level is $17,420, meaning that household would need to make less than $69,680 annually to qualify for the medical debt erasure program.
The plan calls for the city to partner with the non-profit RIP Medical Debt to buy debt from local hospitals at a cheaper price. Just one dollar could relieve a hundred dollars worth of medical debt.
Toledo City Council meets as a whole every other Tuesday, with an agenda review on the Tuesdays in between. Council voted to move the Nov. 8 meeting to Nov. 9 for Election Day.
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