--- title: The nonprofit that buries medical debt - The Hustle description: Americans are saddled with medical debt they can’t pay. One nonprofit buys and buries it. image: https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/972389487-HS-News-Brief_2022-08-15T223735.603Z-scaled.webp --- # The nonprofit that buries medical debt ![Juliet Bennett Rylah](https://53.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/53/assets/hubspot.com/web-team/WBZ/HubSpot%20Media/Blog%202021/Images/Nav/Optimized/TheHustle_Icon_Dark.svg) [Juliet Bennett Rylah](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/author/juliet-bennett-rylah) [Juliet Bennett Rylah Twitter profile ](https://twitter.com/JBRylah) Published: August 16, 2022 Updated: October 11, 2023 [Forty-one ](https://thehustle.co/06232022-medical-debt/)percent of Americans carry medical debt they cannot pay. But some may receive a letter announcing their debt is gone. ![The nonprofit that buries medical debt](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hs-fs/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/972389487-HS-News-Brief_2022-08-15T223735.603Z-scaled.webp?width=595&height=400&name=972389487-HS-News-Brief_2022-08-15T223735.603Z-scaled.webp) Nonprofit [RIP Medical Debt](https://ripmedicaldebt.org/) buys bundles of debt owed by patients making 4x the poverty level or less, then erases it, [per](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/08/15/1093769295/this-groups-wiped-out-6-7-billion-in-medical-debt-and-its-just-getting-started) *NPR*. Co-founders Craig Antico and Jerry Ashton are ex-debt collectors who  were inspired after talking with Occupy Wall Street activists in 2011. Since launching RIP in 2014, they have: - Bought** $6.7B** in debt - Unburdened **3.6m** people #### **How it works** Hospitals sell patients’ debt to debt buyers for a fraction of the amount owed. Buyers profit by collecting on the original amount. RIP raises money to buy debt — either directly from hospitals or on the secondary market — and forgives it. Donors include: - MacKenzie Scott, who gave $50m in 2020. - “Last Week Tonight,” which [partnered](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/06/john-oliver-medical-debt-forgiveness-last-week-tonight) with RIP in this [episode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxUAntt1z2c) to buy ~$15m, freeing ~9k people - Hospitals themselves. Heywood Healthcare in Massachusetts donated [$800k](https://www.heywood.org/news/rip-medical-debt-collaborates-with-heywood-healthcare-to-eliminate-800-000-of-patient-medical-debt) of debt in January The bummer? Americans owed ~$195B in medical debt in 2019, and RIP estimates it could be up to [$1T](https://www.forbes.com/sites/debgordon/2021/10/13/50-of-americans-now-carry-medical-debt-a-new-chronic-condition-for-millions/?sh=35eec4ed5e5d) now. The bright side? Some legislative progress is being made, including a [recent change](https://www.cnbc.com/select/medical-debt-credit-report/) that eliminates some medical debt from credit scores. **More:** Check out nonprofit [Rolling Jubilee](https://debtcollective.org/what-we-do/debt-abolition/), which absolves all kinds of debt. 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