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A TV Station Bought $1 Million Worth of Its Viewers' Medical Debt, and Forgave All of It
If you don't pay a medical bill and it's been in collections a while, they sometimes SELL that debt to another company at a deep discount. Then that company hassles you for the money while the interest keeps piling up.
A reporter in Seattle named Jesse Jones recently learned more about it while he was doing a story on people struggling with medical debt. And he wanted to do something to help them.
So last week, he revealed he got the station to spend about $12,000 to buy up a MILLION DOLLARS worth of medical debt that was owed by people in western Washington. And they're forgiving ALL of it.
About 1,000 people in their viewing area will get letters this month telling them their debt has been waived, and they don't owe money anymore.
The station went through a charity that specializes in this kind of thing. Their website is RIPMedicalDebt.org if you want to check them out.
If this whole thing sounds kind of familiar, it's probably because it's not the first time someone's done it. "Last Week Tonight"host John Oliver got HBO to spend about 60 grand on $15 million worth of medical debt back in 2016.
(KIRO7)