A New York Metropolis girl who died Sunday from most cancers has raised sufficient cash to erase tens of millions of {dollars} in medical debt with a posthumous plea for assist.
Casey McIntyre advised followers in a social media message posted by her husband that she had organized to purchase the medical debt of others as a method of celebrating her life.
McIntyre wrote on X, previously often called Twitter, that “for those who’re studying this I’ve handed away.”
“I liked every one among you with my complete coronary heart and I promise you, I knew how deeply I used to be liked,” the 38-year-old wrote. The posts included a hyperlink to a fundraising marketing campaign began by the nonprofit RIP Medical Debt.
McIntyre’s husband, Andrew Rose Gregory, posted the messages on Tuesday, and the marketing campaign rapidly blew previous its $20,000 purpose. It had raised about $140,000 by Friday afternoon, or sufficient to purchase round $14 million in medical debt.
Gregory mentioned his spouse had good medical health insurance and obtained nice care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Most cancers Middle. Even so, the couple noticed some “terrifying” expenses on paperwork for her care, he mentioned.
“What resonated for me and Casey is, you recognize, there’s good most cancers remedy on the market that individuals can’t afford,” he mentioned. “As a substitute of dreaming of a treatment for most cancers, what if we may simply assist people who find themselves being crushed by medical debt?”
Sufferers within the U.S. healthcare system can rapidly rack up massive payments that push them into debt even when they’ve insurance coverage. That is very true for individuals who wind up hospitalized or want common care or prescriptions for persistent well being issues.
A 2022 evaluation of presidency knowledge from the nonprofit KFF estimates that almost 1 in 10 U.S. adults owe at the very least $250 in medical debt. That whole of roughly 23 million folks contains 11 million who owe greater than $2,000.
RIP Medical Debt erases debt bought from hospitals, different well being care suppliers and the secondary debt market. It buys tens of millions of {dollars} of debt in bundles for what it says is a fraction of the unique worth.
The nonprofit says each greenback donated buys about $100 in debt, and it goals to assist folks with decrease incomes. Spokesman Daniel Lempert mentioned the group has by no means had a marketing campaign the place somebody plans for it to start out after their dying.
McIntyre, who was a e-book writer, began remedy for ovarian most cancers in 2019. She spent about three months within the hospital over the previous yr, her husband mentioned.
The Brooklyn couple began planning for her memorial and the debt-buying marketing campaign after she nearly died in Could. They have been impressed by a video they noticed of North Carolina churchgoers burning about $3 million in medical debt.
McIntyre spent the final 5 months in dwelling hospice care, giving her what Gregory calls a “bonus summer season.” She went on seashore journeys and hung out with their household, together with the couple’s 18-month-old daughter, Grace.
“Casey was very, very sick on the finish of her life, and he or she couldn’t end the whole lot she wished to complete,” Gregory mentioned. “However I knew she wished to do that memorial and debt jubilee. So I set that up and … did it the way in which I assumed she would have wished.”
The Related Press Well being and Science Division receives help from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Instructional Media Group. The AP is solely liable for all content material.
