An Act of Debt Defying Generosity

Every once in a while, you have to clear the sludge clogging up your personal well-being, get past the morass of the Trump administration (knowing that there are plenty of others picking up the slack relentlessly) and write about something else much better. Which is a very low bar to clear.

This is one of those times. And very happily, it clears the bar with a great deal of room to spare.

I should add that this is not at all about Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, however the background to the story begins there.

You may recall -- or not, since it was a decade ago -- I posted a video from that week's Last Week Tonight that they did on August 18, 2016 where he gave away $15 million of debt. The story was on companies buy debt for pennies on the dollar, and how insidious the practice is. And at the end of the report, Oliver revealed that the show purchased just under $15 million of debt for only $60,000 -- and at the push of a button, transferred it to a medical debt forgiveness organization. Here's the video. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, just jump to the 17-minute mark. It's absolutely wonderful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxUAntt1z2c

I bring this up because it's related to a news story I read a few weeks ago.

The story was about how over 260,000 Californians were having all $550 million of their medical debt erased, the result of a multimillion-dollar donation from Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap Inc., and his wife, supermodel Miranda Kerr.

The couple weren't donating half a billion dollars, but on the same principle as Oliver's report and action 10 years ago, they made contribution to the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt.

I had always remembered that John Oliver report and was impressed by this $550 million debt erasure donation. Regardless of the amount they gave (which was still substantial), the impact of it was massive. So, I checked out the organization online.

As Undue Medical Debt explains on their website, donations let them buy debt in large bundled portfolios, millions of dollars at a time costing them just a mere fraction of the medical debt owed. On average, they say, whatever people donate to the organization has 100x the impact. In other words, a donation of $1 eliminates $100 in medical debt!

As they state -- "We acquire debt in large bundles from providers like hospitals and physician groups, as well as from collection agencies and debt buyers, millions of dollars at a time for a fraction of the face value. This means your donation relieves about 100x its value in medical debt. Due to industry standard debt prices anyone can be an impactful philanthropist."

Undue Medical Debt doesn't erase debt for everyone, but those most in need. To qualify, individuals need to earn at or below 400% of the federal poverty level or have medical debt that exceeds 5% of their annual income. (Since all its forgiveness is done through its acquisition of bundled debt for thousands of people at a time, the organization does not accept individual applications for relief.)

I went to the Undue Medical Debt website and made a donation. If anyone else is interested, you can find their link here. Just know if one makes a donation of only $3...it will erase $300 of medical debt.