Earlier than dying, she made a fund to cancel others’ medical debt — practically $70m value : NPR

Casey McIntyre (proper) Andrew Gregory (heart) and their daughter, Grace.

Evan Gregory/Andrew Gregory

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Evan Gregory/Andrew Gregory

Casey McIntyre (proper) Andrew Gregory (heart) and their daughter, Grace.

Evan Gregory/Andrew Gregory

Casey McIntyre needed her legacy to be clearing medical debt for others. However her husband Andrew Gregory says they by no means dreamed it could get this far.

Who’s she? McIntyre was a mom, spouse and writer at Penguin Random Home.

What did she do? Impressed by the philanthropy of others, McIntyre and Gregory orchestrated what they known as a “debt jubilee” in her honor.

• They arrange a fund with the nonprofit group RIP Medical Debt, which buys up debt for tens of millions of {dollars} at a time at a fraction of the unique value. The group says that for each greenback it recieves in donations, it could actually relieve about $100 of medical debt.

• Here is McIntyre’s personal clarification through X (previously Twitter):

• The submit went viral, gaining hundreds of likes and impressions on Instagram and X.
• On the time of publication, the fund has acquired greater than $680,000 of the practically $700,000 objective — which equates to virtually $70 million in medical debt for Individuals throughout the nation.
• RIP Medical Debt buys the money owed similar to some other assortment firm, in keeping with NPR’s Yuki Noguchi. However as an alternative of attempting to revenue from them, they merely notify folks that their money owed are cleared.

Wish to study one other girl’s lasting legacy? Take heed to Take into account This on the life and work of Rosalynn Carter.

What’s her husband saying? Gregory spoke with All Issues Thought of host Ari Shapiro about his spouse’s life and legacy.

On what she was like:

Casey was very, very, very humorous. She was only a hilarious girl. From our very first date, she was cracking me up, and I used to be cracking her up. And we by no means stopped laughing even whereas, frankly, you already know, she was struggling together with her prognosis of stage 4 ovarian most cancers for 4 years. Once I look again at that, it is fairly outstanding.

On how they got here to this determination:

Final March, we noticed a video on-line that was a bit of little bit of a viral submit the place a Moravian church in Winston-Salem, N.C., not too removed from the place I grew up, burned $3 million of debt. And one factor they did that was actually cool is all native debt.

They’ve destroyed the entire medical debt in Yadkin County, N.C. And I simply assume that’s actually cool. And I confirmed that submit to Casey, they usually had executed it by way of RIP Medical Debt as properly.

And Casey got here very, very near dying across the finish of Might. And whereas she was within the hospital, we got here to an settlement that that is what we have been going to do. And Casey was very enthusiastic about it. And she or he acquired out of the hospital, which — we have been very fortunate that she did. She entered dwelling hospice on the suggestion of her oncologist, and we have been actually fortunate that she lived for six months. 

On how many individuals they’ve helped:

I don’t assume Casey might have presumably imagined this response — the worldwide press protection it is gotten — whilst I believe she would have thought that it could have gotten some discover.

I used to be capable of speak to the CEO of RIP Medical Debt, Allison Sesso. And one factor that actually blew me away is I stated to her, like, “Hey, we set this up as a nationwide marketing campaign. Would it not be potential to perhaps shift it to be extra like New York Metropolis? As a result of Casey was such a consummate New Yorker.”

And Allison stated, “Andrew, that is an excessive amount of medical debt for New York Metropolis for us to purchase. We have now to do a much bigger space.”

Gregory says his spouse would by no means have imagined the influence her fund would have.

Andrew Gregory

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Andrew Gregory

Gregory says his spouse would by no means have imagined the influence her fund would have.

Andrew Gregory

So, what now?

Study extra:

The interview with Andrew Gregory was performed by Ari Shapiro, produced by Mia Venkat and edited by Matt Ozug.