We Take Care of Us: Abolishing MI Medical Debt

Hi! I’m so glad you’re here. My name is Nora–I’m a proud Michigander who believes that healthcare is a human right, and that medical debt should not exist. I’m also a current social work student and look forward to building a future where our communities are robust, connected, and uplifting; a future where mutual aid is the norm, and where we take care of us.  

These are the facts: 41% of adults in the United States have medical debt (100 million people), and most of them owe it despite having health insurance. It is the number one cause of individual bankruptcies in America. Half of these adults report cutting back on food and other essentials, moving out of their homes, or draining their savings in an attempt to mitigate this debt–which can harm their credit scores and, according to some studies, even worsen their future health outcomes. I know I will never stop fighting for the U.S. to follow its international peers who have recognized the importance of implementing affordable, universal healthcare for its citizens. But until then, what can we do? 

As it turns out, if we come together, the answer is that we can do a whole lot. As healthcare costs have ballooned, and health insurance deductibles have increased, more and more people can’t pay what they owe to medical institutions, which means there’s more opportunity for predatory collections through an unclear system of bad agents.

It’s disturbing that people’s life-altering debt can be reduced to an investment bet on a quick buck!

A system in which ownership of debt regularly changes hands can work in our favor, because the owner of that debt is always free to say, ‘I’m not collecting. It’s forgiven.’ And the cycle ends right there. 

That’s what RIP Medical Debt helps us do: pool our resources as a community to care for and uplift our friends and neighbors who are suffering with medical debt by purchasing their debt and forgiving it completely. And because the premise of profiting off debt involves a lot of effort on the part of the buyer (that’s the hounding until they pay part), it’s very cheap: approximately $1 per $100 of debt, on average. That means if you have $25 to spare, you can potentially wipe out $2,500 that’s hanging over someone’s head. As a community, our impact can be truly exponential: if 500 of us came together with that $25 to spare, that’s approximately $1.25 million dollars of debt we can forgive. That is a life-changing number, and we can do it today. 

When one of us rises, we all do. So, let’s take on this unethical system by taking care of each other. The impact we can have when we act as one and act with compassion is bigger than we know.  

I hope you’ll join me. 

With love, 

Nora

How it works

• You make a donation. We use data analytics to pinpoint the debt of those most in need: households that earn less than 4x the federal poverty level (varies by state, family size) or whose debts are 5% or more of annual income.
• RIP buys medical debt at a steep discount. We buy debt in bundles, millions of dollars at a time at a fraction of the original cost. This means your donation relieves about 100x its value in medical debt.
• Together we wipe out medical debt. Recipients have no tax consequences or penalties to consider. Just like that, they’re free of medical debt!

Campaign Support Recipients

• Recent Donations
• 

  Anonymous just donated $26.80
• 

  Kathy G. just donated $106
• 

  Anonymous just donated $318
• 

  Jeff And Donna J. just donated $106
• 

  Deb R. just donated $26.80
• 

  Anonymous just donated $106
• 

  Jayne R. just donated $26.80
• 

  Anonymous just donated $58.50