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Americans are drowning in medical debt, so this nonprofit is buying — and forgiving — it - YouTube
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JUDY WOODRUFF: And on another health care
story, Congress is still trying to work out
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a compromise on a different pocketbook issue,
eliminating surprise medical bills.
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The problem can drive many people into deep
debt.
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Our economics correspondent, Paul Solman,
has a report on that debt and a unique effort
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to help people in need.
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It's part of our series Making Sense.
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PAUL SOLMAN: Sixty-one-year-old Gwenlyn Quezada
had a near fatal stroke last year.
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GWENLYN QUEZADA, Patient: They had told my
son, if I come through, I would be a vegetable.
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PAUL SOLMAN: The North Carolina resident managed
to defy the experts, but not the economics.
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GWENLYN QUEZADA: Hearing the bill collectors
calling you about hospital bills that you
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know you don't have the money.
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QUESTION: How much were your bills?
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GWENLYN QUEZADA: Over $6,000.
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PAUL SOLMAN: That's after insurance.
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REAGEN ADAIR, Patient: You have the doctor.
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Then you have the labs.
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PAUL SOLMAN: Texas teacher Reagen Adair owed
10 grand after migraines landed her in the
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hospital.
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REAGEN ADAIR: This has got to be the most
embarrassing thing to have to go through.
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PAUL SOLMAN: And after 13 strokes and two
heart attacks, John Foutch simply says:
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JOHN FOUTCH, Patient: I don't have the money.
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I don't have a job.
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I can't pay it.
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PAUL SOLMAN: These are a small sampling of
the many millions of Americans who collectively
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owe nearly a trillion dollars worth of medical
debt.
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CRAIG ANTICO, RIP Medical Debt: Fifty percent
of all collections in this country are medical.
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Of the 100,000 collectors that we have in
this country, 50,000 or more are medical debt
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collectors.
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PAUL SOLMAN: Craig Antico and Jerry Ashton
used to be debt collectors.
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Were you embarrassed to tell people you were
a debt collector?
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JERRY ASHTON, RIP Medical Debt: I introduced
myself as resolution management.
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(LAUGHTER)
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CRAIG ANTICO: I would say, I run a collection
agency.
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PAUL SOLMAN: And what was their reaction in
general?
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CRAIG ANTICO: Oh, you're a leg breaker.
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ACTOR: What do you want?
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ACTOR: A hundred and 40 bucks.
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You got it?
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ACTOR: No.
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ACTOR: Come on!
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Let's tear it up!
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PAUL SOLMAN: Now, it's not as if legally licensed
debt collectors bear any resemblance to gangland
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toughs, but the objective is the same, says
Jerry Ashton.
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JERRY ASHTON: The bill collector is the enforcer
for the financial industry.
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Anybody who lends money out there, they expect
to be paid.
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So, if they can't do it, then they rely on
third parties.
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And when the third parties fail, then they
will consider, such as with hospitals, of
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selling their debt into the open market, the
debt market, for a few cents on the dollar.
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CRAIG ANTICO: And then the collection companies
try to collect the whole thing.
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PAUL SOLMAN: Chasing down borrowers in default,
regardless of their ability to pay.
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Consider 94-year old Elton Nielsen, a Navy
veteran of World War II.
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Were you under fire ever?
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ELTON NIELSEN, Patient: Oh, yes.
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Normandy, all hell broke loose.
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PAUL SOLMAN: You were in the Philippines,
too?
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ELTON NIELSEN: Oh, yes.
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A lot of dead bodies all through there.
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PAUL SOLMAN: Nielsen lives off Social Security,
in subsidized housing, is covered by VA benefits
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and Medicare, but even he has co-pays and
deductibles for ambulance trips, E.R. visits,
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rehab center care after numerous falls.
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Do you get phone calls from the collection
agency?
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ELTON NIELSEN: Oh, yes.
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PAUL SOLMAN: Really?
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What do you say to them?
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ELTON NIELSEN: I do the best I can.
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PAUL SOLMAN: As would most of us.
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One problem when we don't, embarrassment.
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ELTON NIELSEN: I feel bad.
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PAUL SOLMAN: Retired M.D. Susan Soboroff.
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SUSAN SOBOROFF, Retired Medical Doctor: Often,
when people owed us money, they didn't show
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up for appointments.
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And, of course, there were consequences of
that.
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People with chronic illness had more problems.
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They didn't get their prescriptions filled.
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They got sicker.
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PAUL SOLMAN: And what almost no one knows
-- I certainly didn't -- is that most medical
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bills can be contested.
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As many as 80 percent have errors.
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They can be past the statute of limitations.
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And then there's the charity care exemption.
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CRAIG ANTICO: About 30 percent of the accounts
that get placed for collection, they qualified
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for charity care.
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If they make less than two times the poverty
level, they get it, no questions asked.
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But people don't take it.
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Oh, no, that's not for me.
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PAUL SOLMAN: Because it's a stigma, you mean?
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CRAIG ANTICO: Because it's a stigma.
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And they're proud.
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PAUL SOLMAN: Now, Antico and Ashton knew all
this, as debt collectors.
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But then the crash of '08 hit, and the Occupy
Wall Street movement began, right outside
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their office window.
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MAN: Behold the face of new America.
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PAUL SOLMAN: Intrigued by the movement's focus
on debt, Ashton started attending and blogging
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about it.
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Eventually, he persuaded Antico to help him
start a nonprofit, RIP Medical Debt, that
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would raise money to buy up and forgive seriously
delinquent medical bills.
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It was a slog-and-a-half.
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How do you make a living as a debt forgiver?
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CRAIG ANTICO: You have to get donors that
are willing to pay your salary.
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In the first three years, we made hardly anything.
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And my wife was saying, why are we going into
debt to help people get out of debt?
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JERRY ASHTON: I ran up all my credit cards.
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I borrowed from my own family.
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CRAIG ANTICO: My wife gave me the silverware
and her jewelry to put into hock.
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JERRY ASHTON: I hocked my guitar that I used
to play with as a folk musician.
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CRAIG ANTICO: I have five boys, and two of
them had to stop going to college.
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PAUL SOLMAN: And then when did it turn around?
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CRAIG ANTICO: In May of 2016, we got on a
nationwide show.
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JOHN OLIVER, Host, "Last Week Tonight With
John Oliver": So are you ready to do this?
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(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
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PAUL SOLMAN: That's investigative comedian
John Oliver, whose HBO show had actually created
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a company to buy and forgive uncollected medical
debt.
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JOHN OLIVER: We were soon offered a portfolio
of nearly $15 million of out-of-statute medical
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debt from Texas, at a cost of less than half-a-cent
on the dollar, which is less than 60 grand.
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So we bought it.
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PAUL SOLMAN: But needing help to forgive the
debt without creating tax liabilities for
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the debtors, Oliver turned to Ashton and Antico's
struggling nonprofit.
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JOHN OLIVER: They will commence the debt forgiving
process.
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So what do you say?
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Are you ready to make television history?
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(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
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PAUL SOLMAN: That segment put RIP Medical
Debt on the map.
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JOHN OLIVER: It's done!
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It is done!
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PAUL SOLMAN: And how could they buy so much
debt for so little?
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Because it's the least collectible debt out
there in the secondary market.
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JERRY ASHTON: We go to the debt buyers, who
now have this residue, uncollected.
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PAUL SOLMAN: Right.
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JERRY ASHTON: And we say, you sell us that
debt.
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You're not going to collect it anyway.
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PAUL SOLMAN: And something, like half-a-cent
or a penny on the dollar, RIP's usual cost,
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is better than nothing.
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So you're doing like the opposite of cherry-picking.
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You're taking the worst cherries.
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JERRY ASHTON: You know what we're doing?
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We're charity-picking.
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(LAUGHTER)
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PAUL SOLMAN: Charity-picking.
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CRAIG ANTICO: That is so great, Jerry.
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JERRY ASHTON: I'm a visionary.
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PAUL SOLMAN: Part of the vision, harness local
groups to raise money to relieve debt in their
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communities.
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At last month's Veteran Day Parade in Ithaca,
New York, Judy Jones was fund-raising for
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a second round of debt relief.
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She'd read about RIP Medical Debt last year.
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JUDITH JONES, CureVetDebt.Org: I called the
head of the charity and I said, can we do
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this?
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And he said, yes, if you raise $12,500.
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So, we did.
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PAUL SOLMAN: Mostly from friends, wiping out
$1.5 million of medical debt in Upstate New
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York.
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So, this year, she decided to do it again,
targeting veterans' debt.
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JUDITH JONES: So we set up a Web site, CureVetDebt.
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One dollar relieves $100 of the veteran's
debt.
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PAUL SOLMAN: She sends money to RIP.
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JUDITH JONES: That's wonderful.
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Thank you.
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PAUL SOLMAN: They buy up a debt portfolio.
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But though Jones also ministers to local vets
like Elton Nielsen, she can't target individuals.
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Neither can RIP, no matter how desperate the
requests.
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JERRY ASHTON: "I was diagnosed with non-operable
pancreatic cancer in April 2018.
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Our bills have already surpassed $2.4 million.
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Hospital's already sent me to collections.
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Please help.
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Thank you."
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PAUL SOLMAN: And how many of these have you
gotten?
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CRAIG ANTICO: We have had a total of over
10,000 people write to us.
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PAUL SOLMAN: And you can't do anything individually
with any of them?
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CRAIG ANTICO: No, we can't.
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We can't abolish debts of individuals.
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PAUL SOLMAN: But the individuals in the portfolios
get a letter in a yellow envelope telling
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them their medical debt has been canceled.
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That's how local TV stations, which had raised
money from viewers for debt forgiveness, found
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the folks with whom this story began.
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GWENLYN QUEZADA: "You no longer owe the balance
on the debt."
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PAUL SOLMAN: A final thought.
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Our story has been timed to run during the
holiday season, a time for giving.
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So, you yourself can do as Judy Jones has
done, or, even simpler and more modestly,
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say the co-authors of the book "End Medical
Debt":
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JERRY ASHTON: Every time somebody goes to
Amazon and buys the book, because the authors
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gave up our royalties, that is the same thing
as donating $500 towards medical debt.
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PAUL SOLMAN: You mean you wipe out $500 worth
of...
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JERRY ASHTON: It'll wipe out $500 worth of
medical debt and educate you as well.
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(LAUGHTER)
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PAUL SOLMAN: For the "PBS NewsHour," Paul
Solman, trying to help educate, from New York.
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JUDY WOODRUFF: Remarkable.
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And just this afternoon, RIP Medical Debt
announced that it had eliminated $1 billion
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in medical debt for over 500,000 people.
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