Las Vegas Sun: “Aaron Ford is targeting medical debt as a central plank of his health care platform”

Today, Attorney General Aaron Ford unveiled the second plank of his ‘Affordable Nevada’ agenda: health care. Ford’s health care agenda focuses on lowering costs by: capping prescription drugs at the Medicare-negotiated price, canceling medical debt for tens of thousands of Nevadans, and putting money back in patients’ pockets.

Ford’s ‘Affordable Nevada’ agenda was derived from conversations he had on his statewide ‘Working Class First’ tour and is laser-focused on lowering housing costs with additional proposals on health care, energy, and more. 

Read more below:

Las Vegas Sun: Ford proposes medical debt relief program if elected Nevada governor

• Aaron Ford is targeting medical debt as a central plank of his health care platform, detailing to the Sun his plans to cancel some Nevadans’ medical debt through partnership with the nonprofit sector if elected governor.
  
  

• “We know that folks with medical debt are more likely to skip or to even delay care, and that makes us a less healthy state,” said Ford, a Democrat, who currently serves as state attorney general. “We’ve seen Arizona do it, North Carolina do it … Michigan has done it, and we’re going to find a way to get it done as well.”
  
  

• Ford, in rolling out his health care platform today, pointed to a model already implemented in Nevada: the Latino voting advocacy group Somos Votantes’ cancellation of $133.8 million in medical debt for over 128,000 people between Clark and Washoe counties last November. 
  
  

• In that case, an affiliate of the organization purchased the debt at a fraction of what Nevadans owed and then forgave it.
  
  

• Every dollar spent on such efforts, on average, erases $100 in medical debt, according to Ford’s campaign.
  
  

• “It’s going to be a process that’s collaborative and that incorporates suggestions and, again, best practices,” Ford said. “It’s going to be a work in progress, but it’s something that I’m dedicated and determined to do.”
  
  

• Ford’s plan to require that Pharmacy Benefit Managers — intermediaries that handle prescription drug plan benefits for insurers, according to the American Medical Association — fully pass along savings from rebates onto consumers died in the Legislature last year.
  
  

• Still, Ford highlighted the governor’s vetoes, resistance to the state’s public health insurance option and relationship with the Trump administration. Ford noted that the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which changed Medicaid work requirements, will result in over 100,000 Nevadans losing benefits.
  
  

• “I was a single parent in college. Medicaid kept my son and me healthy during a time period where I really needed it,” Ford said. “When those programs are under attack, I feel it differently, and I feel … the need to stand up for those Nevadans who have to depend upon these types of programs.”

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