The New York City book publisher arranged to use money raised in her memory to buy up the medical debt of others – and then pay it off, according to a website which assisted her philanthropic effort and as of Friday had collected nearly all of her six-figure goal.
“A note to my friends: If you’re reading this, I have passed away,” read a recent post on McIntyre’s account at X – the social media platform formerly known as Twitter – which partly served to detail her campaign. “I’m so sorry. It’s horseshit and we both know it. The cause was stage four ovarian cancer.”
After describing how much she, her family and her friends loved each other, McIntyre’s account linked to her campaign at RIP Medical Debt’s website. Her accompanying farewell message added: “To celebrate my life, I’ve arranged to buy up others’ medical debt and then destroy the debt. I am so lucky to have had access to the best medical care at [the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York] and am keenly aware that so many in our country don’t have access to good care.”
It’s really nice that she was able to pay off 1.5 other people’s debt!
Debt collectors purchase medical debt from banks for cents on the dollar. The fundraiser is going through an agency that’s does this so they can help far more people.
John Oliver on LWT did the same thing in 2016, purchasing $15 million in debt for $60k. Here’s that story.
That’s all great, but I think you missed the joke. The joke was that US healthcare is so expensive that people find themselves with multiple millions of debt from a single disease or accident. The fact that selling the debt is a form of profit enterprise is the duh dun tsss of the joke.