Almost 4,000 indebted Americans have had their medical bills wiped out after a group of activists from Occupy Wall Street purchased and cancelled nearly $15 million of medical debt.
Working through the anti-debt organization Rolling Jubilee, the activists crowd-sourced donations from individual members and eventually raised $700,000. They then used this to purchase consumer debt on the secondary debt market at a fraction of the cost. Using just $300,000 they wiped out the medical bills of 3,801 individuals who collectively owed $15 million.
Rolling Jubilee estimates that 62% of bankruptcies in the US are caused by medical illness and the debt that follows. The group is part of a wider, national campaign called Strike Debt. Made up of former Occupy Wall Street activists, the organization campaigns for economic justice and democratic freedom.
80-year-old Kentucky resident Shirley Logsdon described the debt cancellation as “a godsend.”
The vice-president of the Rolling Jubilee Fund Thomas Gokey said:
“We have no moral obligation to pay a debt to an investor who purchased our debt on average at 4% and then claims we owe 100%.”
Traditionally the purchasing of debt at a fraction of the cost and then demanding repayment, usually at an exorbitant rate of interest, has been the preserve of vulture capitalists taking advantage of indebted nations like Greece. Rolling Jubilee has turned this practice on its head by using donations from ordinary individuals to purchase and expunge the debt of people whose only failing was to become sick.
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