
Changing the World — One Expunged Medical Bill at a Time
By Jerry Ashton, Co-Founder of RIP Medical Debt and Director/Outreach and Engagement. Co-Author of “End Medical Debt”
Yep, that’s possible, actual, and in process at this very moment by way of a charity I was fortunate enough to co-found in 2014 called RIP Medical Debt, which operates nationally out of New York City.

The R.I.P. (Rest in Peace) part was selected purposefully to show our desire to have medical debt abolished and interred in our “debt graveyard.” As of last month, October 2019, our charity has to date located, purchased and then forgiven over $930,000,000 in medical debts — seeing to it that over 400,000 individuals have been so unburdened.
Considering that $1 Trillion in medical debt is currently is owed by Americans, our results might be seen as the proverbial drop-in-the-bucket. We ourselves consider it to be only a good start. Which reminds me of a story about stranded starfish.
There were two men walking along a beach after a major storm. One would sporadically stop to pick up a stranded starfish to throw it far back into the ocean.
“Why do you bother doing that?” the other man questioned. “With all these hundreds of beached starfish, what difference do you think throwing one of them back to the sea would make?”
His friend leaned over to pick up another to throw far out into the surf and responded, “Well, I can’t speak for starfish in general, but I am sure it made a difference for that one.”
So, allow me to backtrack on that “changing the world” thing. More correctly, our work changes the world of one lucky individual at a time whose debt we purchase and forgive. To stretch my rather watery analogy, we help get people back into the swim of things; into life’s ocean where they return with one less worry and a negative mark removed from their credit report.
The latter, alone, can mean that they can get that job, rent that apartment or qualify for a credit card carrying a reduced interest rate. That could make a world of difference.
There are some serious financial healthcare rip-tides out there
Here’s what a Google search (or perhaps, reading the book I co-wrote) will tell you:
Medical debt is the #1 cause leading a person to declare personal bankruptcy. (As for those who cannot even afford the cost of declaring bankruptcy, their unpayable medical debt could qualify as the #1 “social determinant” contributing to poverty.
Medical debt will cause 15,000,000 Americans to deplete their life savings. Medical debt will cause one in four Americans difficulty in paying a recent medical bill.
One in three Americans say that they have delayed getting care because they were worried about the cost. In 2018, a woman severely cut on the leg refused ambulance service because she was afraid she would not be able to afford it. One in four Americans have had to refuse medical care for that exact reason.
The high premiums, the co-pays, the deductibles, insurance refusal for coverage can pull anyone underwater financially. Anyone reading this article — that’s you — is just one accident or major illness away from insolvency.
So, what can anyone do about this?
Go local. As example, I had the pleasure of being in Austin last month and meeting with a number of civic leaders during that visit. What I brought with me was this chart:

What I took back with me to NYC with was the assurance that those four counties would find themselves relieved of over $3,000,000 in medical debt before this year is out. This would require a donation totaling a bit more than $30,000, given that RIP can purchase debt on the open market for less than a penny on the dollar.
After this campaign? Those Eyes-of-Texas intend to take a hard look at the total amount of debt throughout the state of Texas. A withering look. It will take that, and then some.
Our charity has access to purchase over $700,000,000 in Texas medical debt!
The point is, people can do something substantial about this one social ill at almost any level. First, to pull people out of the deep end of the pool. Secondly, search for ways to drain it.
Should that kind of reparative energy go nationwide, combined with a commitment to see legislation passed that could eliminate medical debt in its totality, could put RIP Medical Debt out of business.
That would enable me to no longer have to take that daily walk along that beach. That’s an idea I could get used to.
Jerry Ashton
Jerry Ashton retired in 2007 after 40 years of experience in the credit and collections industry having pioneered customer-sensitive approaches to account resolution that attracted Fortune 100 companies who employed his carefully-trained people to manage over a half-billion dollars annually and reducing the need for negative-based, third-party collections.
When Occupy Wall Street arose at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan on September 17, 2011, Jerry spent months there to better understand the Occupy complaints about the harmful effects of unpayable debt on society. Inspired by this experience, he and an industry colleague, Craig Antico, launched RIP Medical Debt in January of 2014. This time, instead of collecting on patient accounts, they chose to forgive those debts. Goes to show you never can tell.


