Since Casey McIntyre, 38, died from ovarian cancer in November, the campaign she started to pay off others' unpaid medical bills has gained national attention and is now valued at upward of $100 million.
Ms. McIntyre was a publisher with a subsidiary of Penguin Random House in New York and navigated cancer treatments without debt since her 2019 diagnosis. She said she was fortunate to have had access to "the best medical care" at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and was keenly aware that others in the U.S. do not have access to such care, according to social media posts she arranged with her husband, Andrew Gregory, to go live after she died.
To celebrate her life, Ms. McIntyre arranged to buy up others' medical debt and destroy it in what she called a "debt jubilee." Ms. McIntyre and Mr. Gregory established a campaign with the medical debt-buying nonprofit RIP Medical Debt, which relieves $10,000 of debt for every $100 donated. "Every penny buys approximately $1, which is an eye-opening look at both our power to eliminate medical debt and how fictional and made-up so much crushing medical debt is," an obituary for Ms. McIntyre reads.
As of Dec. 20, more than $1 million has been raised for the fund, titled "Casey McIntyre's Debt Jubilee." It nearly doubled within a month's time. A spokesperson for RIP Medical Debt said the fund is the most successful grassroots campaign started on the website.
"On average we say that one dollar donated erases $100 of medical debt, so the campaign is poised to erase $100 million of medical debt, as it stands, but we won't know specifics until we actually start leveraging the funds to buy debt portfolios," spokesperson Daniel Lempert told Becker's. The charity is beginning to target medical debt relief in the Northeast, where Ms. McIntyre's family is based.
Medical debt is a widespread challenge for both uninsured and insured adults in the United States, with about 41% holding debt caused by their medical or dental bills, according to 2022 data from KFF. By age, healthcare debt peaks among those between the ages of 30 and 49.
Ms. McIntyre's memorial and debt jubilee already occurred, but the RIP Medical Debt campaign remains active and accepting donations.