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Undue Medical Debt

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RIP Medical Debt is a Long Island City–based 501(c)(3) charity[1] focused on the elimination of personal medical debt.[2] Founded in 2014 by former debt collection executives Jerry Ashton and Craig Antico,[3] the charity purchases medical debt on the debt collection market, and then forgives the debt.[4] The charity converts every dollar contributed into $100 of purchased medical debt relief. The founders were inspired by medical debt elimination efforts by Occupy Wall Street.[5] The charity gained attention in 2016 when the TV show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver used them to turn $60,000 into $15 million of debt forgiveness.[6] As of June 2022, the charity has forgiven debts for over 2,800,000 individuals and families, totaling over $5 billion.[7][8] CBS News Sunday Morning profiled RIP Medical Debt in a long-form journalism piece by correspondent Martha Teichner in the April 16, 2023, episode of the Sunday morning television newsmagazine, in which it was stated that the non-profit charity had already extinguished more than $9.5 billion in medical debt.[9]

In January 2020, professional basketball player Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks donated $10,000 to the non-profit to abolish a total of $1,000,000 in medical debt.[10]

In December 2020, MacKenzie Scott, who was previously married to Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, donated $50 million.[11]

References

  1. ^ "RIP Medical Debt". Charity Navigator. Retrieved 28 November 2020.
  2. ^ Holpuch, Amanda (2022-12-29). "Medical Debt Is Being Erased in Ohio and Illinois. Is Your Town Next?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-12-29.
  3. ^ Samuel, Leah (June 6, 2016). "Inside the medical debt charity that John Oliver just made famous". Stat. Retrieved 28 November 2020.
  4. ^ Overall, Michael (26 November 2020). "A Tulsa couple we're thankful for tells us how they did it". Tulsa World. Retrieved 28 November 2020.
  5. ^ Esch, Mary (December 24, 2018). "Secret Santas: Charity buys and erases past-due medical debt". Associated Press. Retrieved 28 November 2020.
  6. ^ Goldman, David (June 6, 2016). "John Oliver makes 'TV history' by forgiving $15 million in medical debt". CNN Business. Retrieved 28 November 2020.
  7. ^ "RIP Medical Debt and TransUnion Healthcare Surpass $5 Billion of Medical Debt Relieved and Expand Partnership". RIP Medical Debt. Retrieved 20 June 2022.
  8. ^ "Collecting to Forgive". RIP Medical Debt. Retrieved 13 February 2021.
  9. ^ Teichner, Martha (2023-04-16). "RIP Medical Debt: Abolishing crippling health care debts". CBS News Sunday Morning. Retrieved 2023-07-03.
  10. ^ Habersham, Raisa (January 8, 2020). "Hawks player Trae Young cancels $1M in medical debt for Atlanta families". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
  11. ^ Paavola, Alia (December 16, 2020). "'A game changer': RIP Medical Debt gets $50M donation". Becker's Hospital Review. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
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