The initiative would use COVID-19 relief money to transfer medical bill debt to a nonprofit group, which would forgive it.
Starting this fall, hundreds of residents across Cook County will receive a note in the mail bearing a simple message: Your medical debt is taken care of.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is seen during an interview in her campaign headquarters in Chicago on June 8, 2022. Under a plan Cook County will pay the nonprofit group RIP Medical Debt $12 million over the next three years to buy medical debt accumulated at hospitals across Cook County for pennies on the dollar.
Creditors like hospitals, ambulance operators or private doctors write off debts after a few years and put them up for sale to third-party collection agencies, who can buy millions of dollars worth of charges at a fraction of the original cost in the hopes of collecting on at least some past-due bills. The older the debt, the cheaper it is to buy. Rather than collect on those debts, RIP Medical Debt uses donations to forgive them.
To their knowledge, Cook County is the only government using their federal COVID-19 relief money this way, county officials and RIP President and CEO Allison Sesso said. Aside from a $50 million donation from McKenzie Scott, the billionaire philanthropist, this is the single largest infusion her organization has received.
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