People Buried In Medical Debt Find Relief With Help From Growing Nonprofit, RIP Medical Debt

RIP Medical Debt empowers donors to relieve billions in oppressive medical debt

RIP Medical Debt is helping people pay off their medical debt

Since being founded in 2014 by two former debt collectors, RIP Medical Debt has acquired, and abolished, more than $3 billion of oppressive medical debt, helping over 2 million individuals get out from under the burden of crushing medical debt. RIP works with individuals, faith-based organizations, foundations, and corporations. On average, one dollar donated to RIP forgives $100 of medical debt, empowering every donor to have an outsized impact.

When it comes down to whose debt is forgiven, Allison Sesso the organization’s executive director says “it’s blind. There’s no judgment here on our part.” Sesso explained those eligible for the program must be 200% below the poverty level or below. This year, federal guidelines, for a family of three would make the poverty line an annual income of $21,720. 200% for a family of three would be $43,440.

“We’re not helping people who are well off. We’re helping people who really need the help the most,” Sesso said. In the debt collection market, debts owed by low-income people are cheaper for third parties to buy, because they are least likely to ever be paid off.

December 2020, RIP Medical Debt gratefully announced a $50 million gift from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, the largest in the organization’s history.

Ms. Scott shared her reason for the donation, saying, “Witnessing the determination, creativity, and compassion of people in a crisis has been inspiring… [like] two former debt collections executives enabling donors to anonymously forgive $1,000 in crushing medical debt for struggling families with every gift of $10.”

“Our deepest gratitude to Ms. Scott for her compassionate and most generous gift. This was a gamechanger for RIP Medical Debt, allowing us to move towards our goals in a greatly accelerated way,” said Allison Sesso, RIP Medical Debt’s executive director. “We will immediately put this generous donation to work against our vision that includes the strategic engagement of communities across the country, to achieve health equity for all.”

Medical debt is an American crisis. Forty-one percent of working-age Americans are paying off medical debts or struggling to do so. An additional 7 million elderly adults struggle to pay medical bills. Two-thirds of personal bankruptcies cite medical debt as a key factor. The pandemic has worsened this problem: between February and May of this year 5.4 million Americans lost their health coverage – more people than have ever lost coverage in a year.

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