"Oliver, after excoriating the medical debt system and the politicians who enable it, made an announcement. He had formed a collection agency of his own (which, he said, proves that a complete idiot can create a collections agency), and—with no credentials apart from a minimalist website—purchased nearly $15 million worth of debt for just under $60,000, less than half a cent on the dollar. This purchase entitled him to the names, current addresses, and social security numbers of those who owed the debt, even if the debt was so old it was called zombie debt. And with this information, he acquired the right to try to collect debt...
Soon others, inspired by Oliver, contacted RIP Medical Debt. Some donated anonymously—some very publicly.
Last June, the Minnesota Nurses Association announced they had purchased the medical debt of 1,800 Minnesotan families worth $2.6 million via RIP Medical Debt, paying just $28,000 to collection brokers.
“We’d had many discussions about how to repay the community for what they gave nurses during the strike [in 2016 against Allina Health],” Mary Turner, the association president, said in a statement announcing the debt buy-out. “The John Oliver show inspired us, and we decided to see if we could do the same thing.”...
Apart from donating to organizations that buy and retire debt, there are things we can do in our own communities. Ashton believes many hospitals are falling short on the charity care they should be offering to low-income patients. We can query nonprofit hospitals in our area. We can call out medical practitioners who fail to offer charity care or make payment arrangements. We can work to make our homes, lives, and communities healthier.
And we can work to change a medical system that spends way more per capita than other high-income countries yet has worse outcomes, according to 2013 data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development."
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