Earlier than dying, she made a fund to cancel others’ medical debt — almost $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 wished her legacy to be clearing medical debt for others. However her husband Andrew Gregory says they by no means dreamed it will 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 hundreds of thousands 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.

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

• The publish 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 almost $700,000 aim — which equates to nearly $70 million in medical debt for Individuals throughout the nation.
• RIP Medical Debt buys the money owed similar to another assortment firm, in keeping with NPR’s Yuki Noguchi. However as a substitute of attempting to revenue from them, they merely notify folks that their money owed are cleared.

Wish to study one other lady’s lasting legacy? Hearken to Contemplate 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 lady. 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 realize, she was struggling together with her analysis 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 choice:

Final March, we noticed a video on-line that was a bit little bit of a viral publish 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 all the medical debt in Yadkin County, N.C. And I simply assume that’s actually cool. And I confirmed that publish to Casey, and so they had executed it via 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 had been going to do. And Casey was very enthusiastic about it. And she or he acquired out of the hospital, which — we had been very fortunate that she did. She entered residence hospice on the suggestion of her oncologist, and we had 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 will have gotten some discover.

I used to be in a position to discuss 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’ve got to do an even bigger space.”

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

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Andrew Gregory

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Andrew Gregory

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

Andrew Gregory

So, what now?

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