An anonymous couple donated $2.1 million to RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit charity that buys medical debt for pennies on the dollar to forgive it, which will be used to pay off $250 million in medical debt before the end of the year, according to the charity.
With the donation, RIP Medical Debt will forgive $150 million in needy patients' medical debt immediately. The charity said $50 million of that will be for U.S. veterans and their families.
The remaining $100 million in medical debt will be forgiven for Thanksgiving and the holidays.
The donating couple said: "Catastrophic illness strikes people in all walks of life without warning. Paralyzing medical debt hits people when they're down, turning tragedy to travesty. A quarter-billion dollars is just the tip of the immense iceberg of debt submerging millions of Americans in a sea of hopelessness that can adversely affect the course of their illnesses, damaging their ability to recover.
"We only wish that we could do more. We pray for a day when disease is the only thing patients will need to fight and the one-two punch of life-threatening illness and overwhelming debt will no longer face so many of our fellow Americans."
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