Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign ads claim he erased $700 million in medical debt, but county records and contractor reports show the real figure is far smaller.
In a June television ad, progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s Senate campaign flashed a bold caption: “$700 MILLION MEDICAL DEBT ERASED.” The spot cast the former Wayne County health department chief as the man who “got rid of millions of dollars of medical debt” for Michigan families.
A Washington Free Beacon review of FOIA records, contractor reports, and county documents found a much smaller result. By the time El-Sayed left the health department in April 2025, the Wayne County program had canceled about $41.7 million, roughly 17 times less than the ad’s claim.
Later snapshots still fell far short. Bridge Michigan reported $57.4 million erased nine days after the ad debuted. An Undue Medical Debt quarterly report put the total at $91.7 million through June 2026, helping just under 100,000 Wayne County residents. A county dashboard listed $95.8 million. None approached $700 million.
The program began in March 2024. Wayne County used federal ARPA dollars and local indigent health funds, money from airport parking fees and cigarette taxes, to buy medical debt at a steep discount through New York-based nonprofit Undue Medical Debt.
In a Nov. 1, 2023 email, El-Sayed told colleagues the county would set aside $7 million, with 89 percent from local indigent funds, to erase up to $700 million. The Wayne County Commission only ever approved $5 million. A December 2024 county release floated an extra $2 million “should it be needed.” Undue later said that add-on “was never pursued,” and the grant “remains for $5 million.”
The original 2024 contract projected that $5 million could buy up to $500 million in debt. Undue’s report through June 2026 showed the county had spent a cumulative $1.1 million to cancel $91.7 million. During the original contract period, the effort hit just 8 percent of the ambitious dollar target.
El-Sayed still sells the bigger number on the trail. In a Sept. 5 stump speech he said the county “set aside $7 million to erase up to $700 million of medical debt in what is the largest medical debt erasure in Michigan state history.” His campaign’s “Meet Abdul” page and a Dec. 10, 2025 news release kept language about canceling “up to $700 million” for 300,000 Michiganders.
"Abdul is proud to have spearheaded a program that has erased tens of millions of dollars in medical debt for tens of thousands of Michigan families."
That was campaign spokeswoman Roxie Richner’s response when pressed on the gap. She did not defend the leap from tens of millions to $700 million. She pivoted to El-Sayed’s push for Medicare for All and attacked Republican opponent Mike Rogers as “Big Pharma’s self-described ‘champion.’”
Participation never matched the rhetoric. Independent journalist Kayleigh Lickliter reported in May that among the three top hospital systems in Wayne County, only Henry Ford Health joined, and agreed to sell just $17 million in debt.
Undue slides and an Oct. 31, 2024 email from Undue president and CEO Allison Sesso listed the holdouts. Detroit Medical Center: “Unresponsive since March 2024; many follow-up attempts; Parent org said no.” Corewell: “Not interested.” Karmanos Cancer Institute: “No response from outreach attempts.” Ascension Michigan also stayed off the board. El-Sayed personally lobbied Corewell and still came up empty.
One second-quarter package did move the needle: $29.2 million in debt bought for just under $250,000 from a single federally qualified health center. That kind of deal was the exception, not the rule.
Sesso’s email to El-Sayed also flagged the ARPA reallocation deadline of December 2024 and suggested it was “prudent to discuss the size of the overall grant” given weak provider buy-in. The county authorized only one 12-month renewal option under the original contract. The current extension runs to Dec. 31. Communications director Matt Allen said any further extension is “still to be determined.” Successor health director Kennyle Johnson told an Aug. 27 hearing the county is “going to be looking to renew” with Undue. Republican commissioner Terry Marecki noted contracts often get amended “two or three times,” but the commission would need a new mandate for more.
Rep. Haley Stevens, El-Sayed’s Democratic primary rival, posted the Bridge Michigan story on July 13 and drew a clean line: “aspirational goals aren’t real results.” El-Sayed answered the next day by saying the program had erased “tens of millions of the hundreds of millions of medical debt our program is on track to erase for 300,000 Michiganders.”
That primary fight already carried plenty of baggage. Stevens also pressed El-Sayed to cut ties with Hasan Piker as the race tightened, underscoring how quickly his progressive brand became a liability inside his own party.
Adrian Hemond, CEO of the bipartisan Michigan consultancy Grassroots Midwest, put the pattern in plain terms: “The El-Sayed campaign has been fairly fast and loose with the facts.” He added that campaigns know “most voters are in no position to evaluate factual claims.”
Wayne County Executive Warren C. Evans defended the core idea, saying the buybacks gave residents “relief that they hoped for and greatly needed in their lives at pennies on the dollar to the county.” Detroit’s poverty rate sits at 35 percent, and El-Sayed has said the county ranked eighth nationally for medical debt. Relief at a discount is real. Inflating it into a $700 million erased triumph is not.
A separate Michigan state contract with Undue, $4.5 million, launched in 2024 and running through September 2028, already canceled more than twice Wayne County’s $91.7 million. On June 22, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced the state had purchased over $200 million in medical debt for more than 280,000 residents.
Cook County, Illinois, used $9 million in ARPA funds through Undue and canceled over $1 billion for nearly 800,000 residents, with far broader hospital participation. Same contractor. Same basic model. Different scale, and different honesty about results.
El-Sayed left the county post in April 2025 to run for Senate. He is an M.D. who did not complete a residency and is not licensed to practice medicine, a detail that sits alongside a longer trail of overstated accomplishments on lead exposure, a juvenile jail, and eyeglasses distribution. Voters weighing those claims can also revisit resurfaced audio of El-Sayed downplaying a terrorist attack on a Michigan synagogue.
His record on immigration enforcement has drawn similar scrutiny. A 2018 video shows him calling for driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, another flashpoint in a race that keeps forcing Democrats to explain his furthest-left positions.
Associations have followed him too. Reporting on his Jewish outreach featuring activists tied to a group that called Hamas attackers “Palestinian fighters” added to the pile, as did questions around an ISNA convention appearance alongside controversial speakers.
Undue says it is still talking with the county about next steps but has “haven’t received a formal extension or new amendment” and “can’t speculate” before year’s end. The nonprofit says it continues to engage providers, expects “some additional purchases soon,” and is working “to maximize the County’s investment.” That is the language of an ongoing, limited buyback, not a completed $700 million erasure.
When a candidate turns a partial, hard-fought local program into a statewide campaign trophy, voters deserve the ledger, not the slogan. Pennies on the dollar can help families. Pretending the full $700 million already vanished does not.