In 2011, Jerry Ashton and Craig Antico, were executives in the debt collection business. The two decided to visit the Occupy Wall Street protests that were taking place in Zuccotti Park in New York City, not knowing that it would change the course of both their lives.
While there, protestors approached them, asking if it would be possible to get a group of people together for the purpose of buying debt in order to forgive it. Ashton and Antico loved the idea, and in 2014 they created a charity called RIP Medical Debt, which buys up past due medical debt for a low price.
According to Allison Sesso, president and CEO of RIP Medical debt, “We take $1 and turn it into at least $100 of medical debt relief by acting like a for-profit debt buyer… Once we get our hands on those debts, we identify people that are 400% of poverty [or below], or if their debt is 5% or more of someone’s income.”
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, professor of public health at New York’s Hunter College, and an expert in medical debt, explains that 20% of all U.S. households have medical debt. In fact, medical illness and medical bills are a factor in the majority of U.S. bankruptcy cases.
To date, RIP Medical Debt has abolished more than $10 billion worth of medical bills for nearly 7 million Americans. While these are impressive figures, there is still much more work to be done, as somewhere between $80 and $120 billion in medical debt continues to exist.
In the meantime, those who benefit from RIP Medical Debt are thrilled that they no longer have to worry about their medical debt.