for more on medical debt, who has it and what to do about it, we are joined by elisabeth benjamin, viceof health initiatives at the community service society of new york and co-founder of the health care for all new york campaign. welcome back to democracy now! can you test lay out this issue that bernie sanders addressed last night and so many people are addressing around the country? what exactly is medical debt and what are these huge hospitals that are not profits doing to particularly indigent patients who end up in medical debt? >> thank you for having me. it is nice to be here. so how many people have medical debt? it is around 100 million of people around the country that have medical debt. that has rock capped to be about $200 billion, $195 billion in medical debt in america people are incurring. essentially, 20% our nation's population. the other thing that is extraordinary about this is to our profound racial andthnic disparities in terms of who owns medical debt. 28% of african-american folks have medical debt. 22% of latina, latino, latinx. 70% of white folks, 10% of asian.