\u201cAn Arm and a Leg\u201d updates a popular episode from 2019 \u2014 a story about giving.<\/p>\n
In 1980, a young father named Denny Buehler was battling leukemia and needed to travel from Ohio to Seattle for treatment. To raise money for the trip, his friends and family organized a softball tournament.<\/p>\n
Denny passed away a few months later, but his friends and family turned the softball tournament into a beloved tradition. For more than 40 years, they have hosted the games and sold hot dogs to raise money for other people in the area who need help with medical expenses.<\/p>\n
In 2019, the Denny Buehler Memorial Foundation<\/a> found a way to make a bigger impact, buying up old medical debt \u2014 and erasing it. Today, its partner in the effort, now known as Undue Medical Debt<\/a>, has wiped away billions in debt.<\/p>\n \tDan Weissmann<\/p>\n \t\t\t \t\t\tHost and producer of “An Arm and a Leg.” Previously, Dan was a staff reporter for Marketplace and Chicago’s WBEZ. His work also appears on All Things Considered, Marketplace, the BBC, 99 Percent Invisible, and Reveal, from the Center for Investigative Reporting.\t\t<\/p>\n \tEmily Pisacreta \tAdam Raymonda \tEllen Weiss \tAnn Heppermann \t\t\t\t\tClick to open the Transcript\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tTranscript<\/strong>: Revisiting \u2018Christmas In July\u2019<\/strong>\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Note: \u201cAn Arm and a Leg\u201d uses speech-recognition software to generate transcripts, which may contain errors. Please use the transcript as a tool but check the corresponding audio before quoting the podcast.<\/em><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> Hey there\u2013<\/p>\n We are bringing back a story we first put out five years ago. We called it \u201cChristmas in July\u201d because it\u2019s a story about giving.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some things have changed since 2019 \u2014 hi, we\u2019ve had a couple big presidential elections and a pandemic. And there\u2019s been some news on our beat recently. We\u2019ll have some updates and some context to add at the end.\u00a0<\/p>\n For now, here\u2019s the story:<\/p>\n In 1980, Denny Buehler was a 24 year old guy with three kids and leukemia.\u00a0 He needed a bone marrow transplant, and in those days, that was not available in Cincinnati, where he lived. He had to go to Seattle, with his sister, who was the donor. And his wife.<\/p>\n Jenny: Well I remember my dad and I\u2019m the only one of my siblings who does<\/strong>.<\/p>\n This is Denny\u2019s oldest daughter, Jenny Spring. She was four when he went to Seattle.<\/p>\n Jenny: I do remember knowing he was sick. I remember, you know, we lived with his parents, our grandparents, while he and my mom and aunt Cynthia were in Seattle.<\/strong><\/p>\n It was a long distance relationship:\u00a0 Letters. Sending tapes back and forth\u2013 in those days, long-distance phone calls were expensive.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jenny: I remember reading my first book, go dog, go onto a cassette tape and sending it out to Seattle.<\/strong><\/p>\n Back home, Denny\u2019s other sister, Mary Beth, organized a softball tournament to raise money for all the expenses: Flights to Seattle, places to stay.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n [[ENTER THEME]]<\/p>\n And that softball tournament\u2013 that one-off event that was part of one family\u2019s struggle\u2013 became the germ of something that is now\u2013 40 years later \u2014 starting to help a LOT of people.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is An Arm and a Leg, a show about the cost of health care. I\u2019m Dan Weissmann.<\/p>\n [[THEME FADES UNDER NEXT TRACK]]<\/p>\n The bone marrow transplant worked but Denny died of pneumonia a few months later. February 14, 1981<\/p>\n Jenny: We had a Valentine\u2019s day party at school. I was in kindergarten and my mom\u2019s brother, my uncle Tim came to pick me up from school, which was very strange.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Jenny (cont): And he took me over to my dad\u2019s parents\u2019 house.<\/strong><\/p>\n Jenny: And I remember I was eating a red heart shaped lollipop sitting in the front seat of the car cause kids were allowed to do that back then. And uh, I remember he stopped hard and I bit down on the lollipop<\/strong> <\/strong>It broke in my mouth and I looked over at him and, and I realized he was trying not to cry.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [[ENTER MUSIC:\u00a0 LOW-COAL CAMPER]]<\/p>\n They got there. The whole family was there\u2013 both sides\u2013 all waiting to give her the news<\/p>\n Jenny: I remember I said, my daddy died?<\/strong><\/p>\n And that left the family in a tough situation, and not just emotionally.<\/p>\n [MUSIC FADES \u2014 OUT AFTER \u201cHE WAS 24]<\/p>\n Jenny: You know, he was 24 and then my mom, you know, same age. Three kids, five and under, high school diploma. Trying to figure out how to make things work.<\/strong><\/p>\n ED: You know we didn\u2019t have a whole lot.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n This is Jenny\u2019s brother Ed. Four years younger<\/p>\n ED: You know, there were times where we had to go grocery shopping at grandma and grandpa\u2019s house, you know.<\/strong><\/p>\n Jenny: That is true. I remember\u2013 yeah we\u2019d go in and you know, mom would take food from the cabinets in the fridge and we\u2019d take it home. And I\u2019d, you know, they knew she was doing it. But they bought extra and it was just, you know, nobody talked about it. But that was the way it worked for a while.<\/strong><\/p>\n The grandparents also stepped forward to help out in bigger ways. Like they purchased a house for the family in a close-knit little suburb, Greenhills. Good schools, a sense of community, all thanks to grandma and grandpa.<\/p>\n Jenny: Without them, I don\u2019t know where we would\u2019ve been. You know as a teacher, I work with a lot of kids that come from low income families and they tell me about their lives and I, you know, I reflect on that. That\u2019s so easily how things could have been for my family without support from both sets of grandparents.<\/strong><\/p>\n [[MUSIC STARTS FADING UP DURING NEXT TRACK:\u00a0 Heartland Flyer]]<\/p>\n The life Jenny\u2019s grandparents made possible included more than just food and shelter, a sense of safety. Being part of that community meant time for celebration, for PLAY. In Greenhills, it meant\u2026 softball.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Ed: There\u2019s a drive to the left.<\/p>\n Jenny: We kind of grew up at the ball field . You know, my mom played. My aunt Mary Beth, it was just, you know, kind of that softball life and it\u2019s hard to know in my memory where the separation is between just being up there because they were playing in leagues\u2013 and when the tournament began.<\/strong><\/p>\n The tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n After Denny died, his sister Mary Beth and her friends organized a SECOND tournament. This one was to help out a friend who had gotten into a motorcycle accident.<\/p>\n After that, the tournament became an annual tradition.\u00a0<\/p>\n Announcer: We\u2019re at Spoils Field in Green Hills for the 15th annual Denny Buehler Memorial Charity Softball Tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n There was pretty much always somebody in the community to help. Somebody with big medical problems, not enough money. Sometimes more than one somebody.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Denny Buehler\u2019s kids, the tournament was part of every year\u2019s routine.<\/p>\n ED: My whole life, you know, it\u2019s just been, it\u2019s like Christmas or you know Easter or new years. It\u2019s like a holiday for us in the family. You know, we have, another one that just happens to come in July.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ed was an athletic kid, couldn\u2019t wait to be able to play in the tournament himself. He had to wait until he was 17.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n [[MUSIC OUT]]<\/p>\n Then, not that many years later, when Ed was 25, the group of friends that had been running the tournament said they were ending it.\u00a0<\/p>\n ED: They ran it for 25 years and they were, they were just ready to be done, they were like you know we made it 25 years. It ran its course.<\/strong><\/p>\n These folks had been young when they started it\u2013 in their mid-20s.\u00a0<\/p>\n [MUSIC FADES IN:\u00a0 Perspiration \u2014 Lighter Touch (Adam, let\u2019s kill the whistling, via stems please)]]<\/p>\n That was 1980. Now it was 2005. They had enjoyed a lot of good times, they\u2019d worked hard, they\u2019d helped dozens of people, played a LOT of softball, drank a lot of beer. It was a thing they had done for a long, important period in their lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Denny Buehler\u2019s kids, it was more than that. It was an annual tradition they had always known\u2013 not for part of their lives, their whole lives. It was a celebration they could count on, a community event\u2013 a chance for their family, a family that had struggled, to be in a position to give back, to be leaders. And it was a legacy from the dad they had grown up without.<\/p>\n Jenny for one was NOT ready for it to end. A couple of her friends, and her husband said they would help. Of course Ed was game too.\u00a0<\/p>\n [MUSIC FADES AND OUT]]<\/p>\n Jenny told her Aunt Mary Beth she wanted to take over the tournament.<\/p>\n Jenny: And she was a little skeptical because I\u2019ll tell you what, when I was, Oh gosh, back then, let me think. What was I doing in life? I was singing in a punk band.<\/strong><\/p>\n [[MUSIC: Shut Up, B\u2014\u00a0 by the Hypochondriacs]]<\/p>\n Jenny:\u00a0 [Laughs]\u00a0 I probably had pink hair.<\/strong><\/p>\n The band was called the Hypochondriacs!\u00a0 This is their hit.<\/p>\n These days Jenny is a teacher, and a leader for her daughter\u2019s girl scout troop. She sings with a community choir \u2014 with 1200 members \u2014 that she helped start.\u00a0<\/p>\n But at the time\u2026<\/p>\n Jenny: I didn\u2019t have a big track record for taking on projects and responsibilities.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Jenny: I had learned to book and promote shows and I guess that would be the first type of project that I took on was promoting punk rock bands, but, you know, to my family, that wasn\u2019t a serious thing. That wasn\u2019t.<\/strong><\/p>\n [[MUSIC BUMPS IN VOLUME, THEN OUT]]<\/p>\n But of course Jenny\u2019s aunt Mary Beth wasn\u2019t about to tell her no, she couldn\u2019t try. Mary Beth introduced Jenny to the rest of the committee that had run the tournament. They taught her what they could about how the thing worked, and then it was up to her and whoever she could round up.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jenny: So I remember the first year we did the tournament, just not being able to sleep, you know?<\/strong><\/p>\n [MUSIC IN:\u00a0 Spunk Lit]]<\/p>\n JENNY, cont: Just being so nervous about if we were going to be able to pull it off<\/strong><\/p>\n Jenny: It was my brother, my sister, my husband, a few of my friends \u2014 the guitar player from my band coming up there with purple hair.<\/strong><\/p>\n They pulled it off. Barely.\u00a0<\/p>\n And they had a lot to learn. For instance, for a long time the most important money-maker for the whole event has been running a grill, hot dogs, and burgers, selling food. But the new generation\u2019s first time out, they didn\u2019t make much.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n It turned out their idea for STAFFING the grill had some built in problems. That idea seemed like a way to quickly grab some extra volunteer power:\u00a0 When a team got eliminated, their players would take a turn staffing the grill.\u00a0<\/p>\n ED: And then we realized, wait, we\u2019re not making any money because they\u2019re just giving all the food away you know to their friends. They lost and they\u2019re handing out burgers and hot dogs like they\u2019re candy.<\/strong><\/p>\n Over time, Jenny and Ed and the rest of their crew tightened things up\u2013 and got a LOT more volunteers, and made some new rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n These days the tournament raises about ten thousand dollars a year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n [MUSIC OUT]]<\/p>\n [AMBI:\u00a0 SOFTBALL!!]\u00a0<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how it works.\u00a0<\/p>\n There\u2019s 18 teams, double elimination. It starts Friday night\u2013 like a half a dozen games\u2013 then up bright and early on Saturday, there till late at night. Then all day Sunday, maybe into the evening.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ed says a couple thousand people might come every year. Alot of games, a lot of beer, burgers and corn on the cob.<\/p>\n [[AMBI FADES]]<\/p>\n In 2015, ten years after the new generation took over, they took a new step: turning this ad-hoc event, this thing that had just somehow kept going for more than 30 years\u2013 into an institution:\u00a0<\/p>\n They incorporated as the Denny Buehler Memorial Foundation, an official tax-exempt non-profit organization.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The idea was, they could start to think bigger.\u00a0<\/p>\n ED: You know we\u2019re working really hard. We\u2019re doing really good things that we, we all really like and we\u2019re all really bought into. But the impact is, is relatively small for the amount of work that goes into it. You know, I don\u2019t want to say $10,000 is not a lot of money, but life is hard and when something\u2019s gotten in your way, $10,000 doesn\u2019t go really, really far.<\/strong><\/p>\n Jenny: We would love to help more people. And so we talked for a long time about what that should be. And when I say talk, I mean we argued. (Laughs)\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n And when she says a long time, she means two years. The foundation was incorporated in 2015. In the fall of 2017, they were\u2026\u00a0 still \u2026 talking.\u00a0<\/p>\n And then one day, inspiration. Inspiration that has led Ed and Jenny and the foundation to help their neighbors to the tune of a million dollars so far.\u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s right after this.<\/p>\n This episode of An Arm and a Leg is a co-production with KFF Health News. That\u2019s a national nonprofit newsroom producing in-depth journalism about health issues. Their reporters do amazing work \u2014 and win all kinds of awards every year. We\u2019re honored to work with them.<\/p>\n So. Fall 2017. Jenny was driving home from seeing a friend\u2013\u00a0<\/p>\n Jenny: And I had been talking to her about, you know, the foundation and how we were struggling to come up with an idea.<\/strong><\/p>\n She passed through a neighborhood dense with hospitals.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jenny: So I\u2019m driving through this hospital district and just all of a sudden I thought about what John Oliver did\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The year before, in 2016, the comedian John Oliver had done one of his most famous stunts on his HBO show \u201cLast Week Tonight.\u201d It was about a whole industry lots of us had never heard of: The buying and selling of\u00a0<\/p>\n JOHN OLIVER: DEBT.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Debt. Especially medical debt. It turns out, if you\u2019re hearing from a debt collector about an old debt, they probably don\u2019t represent whoever you originally got in debt to\u2013 like say, a hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n At some point, the hospital-or-whoever SOLD your debt \u2014 really, the right to collect on it \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n to someone else. For a lot less than you owed.\u00a0<\/p>\n JOHN OLIVER: and that debt buyer can then come after you for the full original amount. And if it can\u2019t collect, potentially, it can then resell that debt for a fraction of what it paid to someone else who can still come after you for the original amount<\/strong><\/p>\n Or sell it to somebody else for even cheaper. To the point where really old debts sell for pennies on the dollar. Actually, less than pennies.<\/p>\n To demonstrate how cheap it was\u2013 and how easily debt was bought and sold\u2013 John Oliver bought 15 million dollars in old medical debt, for less than half a cent on the dollar.<\/p>\n JOHN OLIVER: We thought: Well, instead of collecting on the money, why not forgive it? Because on one hand it\u2019s obviously the right thing to do, but much more importantly, we\u2019d be staging the largest one time giveaway in television show history.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n JOHN OLIVER: So what do you say? Are you ready to make television history? Let\u2019s do this!<\/strong><\/p>\n Jenny: It was just like an inspiration \u2013I was like, this is the idea!<\/strong><\/p>\n She got home and got to work.<\/p>\n Jenny: You know, I pulled out my laptop and I started researching and\u2026\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n She found that John Oliver had worked with a non-profit that specializes in raising money to buy and forgive old medical debts. They\u2019re called RIP Medical Debt.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jenny: John Oliver had vetted them.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Check. Good sign. She kept going. A few hours later, she was talking with Jerry Ashton, one of the group\u2019s co-founders.<\/p>\n Jenny: I said, how are you doing this? How does this work?<\/strong><\/p>\n And she liked what she heard.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Jenny:\u00a0 I love their story of how they were debt collectors. And realized how they could use that power for good.<\/strong><\/p>\n Yep. Jerry Ashton and Craig Antico had been debt collectors for decades. They reversed course after working with volunteers from Occupy Wall Street, who raised money for a project called \u201cRolling Jubilee\u201d to buy up and forgive old debts.<\/p>\n Jerry Ashton: We were, basically, a back office for them.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n This is Jerry.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n JERRY: They went out, and they raised a $700,000 eventually.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Jerry says he and Craig helped them use that money to buy up \u2014 and forgive \u2014 $30 million in debt.\u00a0 And when the Rolling Jubilee wound down, Jerry and Craig started RIP Medical Debt. That was in 2014.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Jerry Ashton: The first year or so we starved to death. But then John Oliver discovered us.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n John Oliver brought folks to them\u2013 folks like Jenny Spring.\u00a0<\/p>\n This year, RIP Medical Debt has raised enough money to pay off a billion dollars in old debt. Craig Antico says two things allow them to do it for about a penny on the dollar.\u00a0<\/p>\n [[MUSIC IN: Lobo Lobo]]\u00a0<\/p>\n One is: They\u2019re buying old debts. Hard-to-collect-on debts. The companies that own these debts now\u2013 the right to collect on those debts\u2013 they don\u2019t expect to get 100 percent of what\u2019s owed, or ANYTHING like it and anything they get, they\u2019re going to spend years chasing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Craig Antico: Let\u2019s say they\u2019re only going to collect 2% over the next 10 years.<\/strong><\/p>\n Cash upfront sounds good. The other thing is, RIP Medical Debt is buying in bulk.<\/p>\n Craig Antico: If I went to a hospital and said, \u201cI see you have $1,000 bill here for Jane.\u201d And I offered them $10, they\u2019re gonna laugh. If I put a thousand of those Janes together\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s worth talking about. Instead of a thousand negotiations for ten dollars each, it\u2019s one negotiation for ten thousand dollars.<\/p>\n So, it\u2019s only because we abolish so much debt at one time that they\u2019re willing to do this.<\/strong><\/p>\n Jenny took it all in. It added up.\u00a0<\/p>\n [MUSIC STARTS TO FADE]]<\/p>\n Jenny: I came to the board meeting and I, and I said, Hey look, here\u2019s a little bit of research I\u2019ve done and I think purchasing and forgiving medical debt\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [MUSIC OUT]\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2026 and everybody was like, yes. I mean the consensus was instant.<\/strong><\/p>\n That was the fall of 2017. In November, Jenny and Ed went to New York to meet the RIP Medical Debts founders in person.<\/p>\n By January 2018, the board had decided: They were in. With some details to work out.<\/p>\n ED: The interesting thing is the, the roadblock that we ran into was, Oh, man, but we love the tournament so much.<\/strong><\/p>\n They took it slow, waited until that year\u2019s softball tournament\u2013before even announced what they had in mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jenny: You know, we printed up some flyers that kind of explained it. We wanted to be really sure that everybody knew that we weren\u2019t changing the softball tournament.<\/strong><\/p>\n That was July 2018. It took almost another year before they actually raised money for the new initiative.\u00a0<\/p>\n Finally, in June 2019, they put on an event at a local bar. They called it Blues, Booze and Brunch.<\/p>\n [MUSIC IN:\u00a0 CHRIS LEE QUARTET, \u201cBACKDOOR STRANGER\u201d]]<\/p>\n They charged twenty bucks\u2013 ten for kids\u2013 and put out a taco bar for the spread. If you ordered a bloody mary from the bar, a dollar went to the cause. For entertainment, there was a blues band led by one of Jenny\u2019s old punk-rock pals.\u00a0<\/p>\n There was a grill on site\u2013 and they figured out how to scramble eggs on it\u2013 but everything else had to be made in advance.<\/p>\n MUSIC!!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Jenny: Let\u2019s see: Our board member Tracy spent about an hour cracking eggs before we went up there. My sister baked breakfast muffins and little pastries and things like that for weeks and put them in her freezer\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n That raised the first couple of thousand. A few weeks later, the tournament went ahead as usual\u2013 raising money for a teacher\u2019s aide at a local school with five kids and kidney cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n And then, it was back to raising money to forgive medical debts. Doing whatever they could think of. Local brew-pubs hosted events \u2014 a dollar for every pint sold on a fund-raiser night went to the cause.\u00a0<\/p>\n [MUSIC FADES,OUT BY MIDDLE OF NEXT SENTENCE]<\/p>\n And there was a lot of going on facebook, asking friends to chip in five dollars or ten.<\/p>\n Jenny: People work hard and we\u2019re living in a time where wages are not keeping up with, you know, the cost of things. And so it\u2019s hard to give for a lot of families. But when people realize 10 bucks can become $1,000, that helps somebody out in a really impactful way, then they\u2019re willing to donate.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [[MUSIC, \u201cHELIOTROPE,\u201d STARTED FADING IN UNDER \u201cwilling to donate\u201d]]<\/p>\n Ed\u2019s kids made tags for Christmas gifts\u2013 you know like, from Dan to whoever<\/p>\n ED: My wife broadcasted it on Facebook, Hey, we\u2019re making gift tags. You can buy six of \u2019em for $5. Um, and they raised $255 just making Christmas gift tags.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Which\u2013 because of the multiplier effect\u2013 means they wiped out more than $20,000 in medical debt. With Christmas tags.<\/p>\n The group did a bunch of asks on Giving Tuesday at the beginning of December. Jenny says they raised $2,000 on Facebook that way, which took them over the top:\u00a0 They had raised more than twelve thousand bucks\u2013 enough money to buy that first million dollars worth of medical debt:\u00a0<\/p>\n Jenny: People are just going to get this magic envelope in the mail\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Magic envelopes.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n ED: that say: You had this debt that had gone to collections. And it was purchased and forgiven. You never have to worry about it again.<\/strong><\/p>\n [[MUSIC SWELLS, THEN FADES UNDER NEXT CUT, OUT BY \u201cMILLION\u201d]<\/p>\n They called RIP Medical Debts and said: We\u2019re ready to pay off that first million. What next?<\/p>\n Jenny: And immediately they come back and say there\u2019s about $37 million in your area.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n DAN: Like if you wanted to take on the whole of Cincinnati, basically.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n JENNY: Uh, well we do. We intend to, we\u2019re going to keep going. There\u2019s no reason to stop.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Jenny: Medical debt is unlike any other kind of debt.\u00a0 You choose to take on the debt or you choose to die.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n DAN:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/strong><\/p>\n Jenny: And it\u2019s just, it\u2019s not right. It\u2019s not right. And it\u2019s like I tell my kids: When you have everything that you need, it\u2019s your job\u2013 it\u2019s your responsibility to help people who don\u2019t. And I believe that to my core because that\u2019s what people did for us when we needed it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Jenny says: We\u2019re living in weird times. It is easy to be cynical. But this \u2014 making things a little bit better this is what we\u2019re here for. It\u2019s what we owe to each other.\u00a0<\/p>\n JENNY: And, why not? What else do you have to do? <\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> That\u2019s the story, as we ran it in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some things have changed since then. For one, RIP Medical Debt changed its name, earlier this year, to Undue Medical Debt \u2014 that\u2019s spelled U \u2013 N \u2013 D \u2013 U \u2013 E. Like this debt is no longer due to anyone. Or as in Medical debt is an undue \u2014 improper \u2014 thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it does sound like unDOing medical debt. Which, nice.\u00a0<\/p>\n They\u2019ve also gotten a lot bigger since 2019, when they said they\u2019d abolished a billion dollars in debts. By 2021, their website says that number was 5 billion. By 2023, it was 10 billion.<\/p>\n In the last couple years, state and local governments have started partnering with Undue to get old debts forgiven\u2013 often using federal money to buy up those debts: New York City, Cook County, Illinois; the state of New Jersey; And in Ohio alone, Cleveland, Akron and Cincinnati.<\/p>\n Recently, I caught up with Jenny Spring. COVID slowed down her family\u2019s work on medical debt. The summer of 2020, when gatherings like softball tournaments were still basically a \u201cno,\u201d they organized a concert of sorts on zoom.<\/p>\n [AUDIO?]\u00a0<\/p>\n And in the years since, just running the tournament took pretty much everything they had in them. The pandemic was a big deal.<\/p>\n Jenny:<\/strong> It changed our lives in ways we couldn\u2019t predict. Everyone\u2019s lives had become more complicated.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> And it\u2019s taken a long time to regroup.\u00a0<\/p>\n But now, she says, they\u2019re ready to take on more. And seeing how much Undue Medical Debt has grown\u2013 it leaves them thinking maybe they should take on something different.<\/p>\n Jenny:<\/strong> It\u2019s great paying off medical debt. We\u2019re really glad we did that. But, um, is there something more immediate that we can do? Is there something that helps people before they\u2019re in medical debt, before they\u2019re facing bankruptcy, before their family is, you know, on the brink of financial ruin?<\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> One idea they\u2019re thinking about draws inspiration from two sources they\u2019ve drawn on before.\u00a0<\/p>\n One is family experience. In this case, professional experience. Jenny\u2019s mom works in medical billing.<\/p>\n The other is\u2026 pop culture.<\/p>\n Jenny:<\/strong> I don\u2019t, if you\u2019ve ever seen the Incredibles, there\u2019s this great scene where Mr. Incredible gets himself fired from his health insurance job and they\u2019re mad at him because he\u2019s telling everyone how to get their claims paid<\/strong><\/p>\n Boss:<\/strong> They\u2019re experts! Experts, Bob!<\/strong>]<\/strong> Exploiting every loophole! Dodging every obstacle!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Jenny:<\/strong> Bob, they\u2019re navigating the bureaucracy. Um, so, my mom is really good at navigating that bureaucracy<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> And over the years, in her spare time, she\u2019s helped a lot of people navigate it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jenny:<\/strong> Her eyes are sharp and when she goes through bills, she picks up on these things, right? And so, what if we could scale that up? What if we could raise enough money to hire contractors to do this for people for free, right? And maybe a lawyer or two to send an occasional threatening letter.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> Jenny says they\u2019re still workshopping this idea. It\u2019ll take time to figure out details. Make a budget, a fundraising plan, all of it. More than a year. But I do love this idea so much.\u00a0<\/p>\n As we\u2019re getting ready to release this, Luigi Mangione, who allegedly shot United Healthcare\u2019s CEO, has just been arrested.\u00a0<\/p>\n People have been expressing their anger at insurance companies like United all week.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s an anger that we\u2019re deeply, intimately familiar with, around here.\u00a0<\/p>\n We say every time: We\u2019ve taken on one of the most enraging, terrifying, depressing parts of American life.\u00a0<\/p>\n And no one of us can solve this.\u00a0<\/p>\n But that doesn\u2019t mean there\u2019s *nothing* we can do.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n So, among other things, I want to continue talking to people like Jenny Spring and her family. Over decades, they\u2019ve been patiently, creatively doing what they can do.\u00a0<\/p>\n Put on a softball tournament. Raise money to relieve old debts. Find a way to help more neighbors stay OUT of debt. They can\u2019t do everything. But they\u2019re doing what they can, one step at a time.<\/p>\n Jenny says the board of the Denny Beuhler Memorial Foundation recently welcomed two new members \u2014 in their twenties. A third generation coming together to keep the fight going.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ll catch you in a couple weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n Till then, take care of yourself.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n This episode of An Arm and a Leg was produced by me, Dan Weissmann, with help from Emily Pisacreta. Our story was edited by Ann Hepperman in 2019. Ellen Weiss edited this re-release.<\/p>\n Adam Raymonda is our audio wizard. Our music is by Dave Weiner and Blue Dot Sessions. Gabrielle Healy is our managing editor for audience.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lynne Johnson is our operations manager. Bea Bosco is our consulting director of operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n An Arm and a Leg is produced in partnership with KFF Health News. That\u2019s a national newsroom producing in-depth journalism about health issues in America and a core program at KFF, an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zach Dyer is senior audio producer at KFF Health News. He\u2019s editorial liaison to this show.\u00a0<\/p>\n And thanks to the Institute for Nonprofit News for serving as our fiscal sponsor. They allow us to accept tax-exempt donations. You can learn more about INN at INN.org.\u00a0<\/p>\n Finally, thank you to everybody who supports this show financially. You can join in any time at arm and a leg show, dot com, slash: support.\u00a0<\/p>\n And here the names of just some of the people who have pitched in since our last episode. Plus, at the end, a little audio thank-you gift.<\/p>\n Thanks this time to\u2026 [names redacted]<\/p>\n And now for that audio thank-you gift: Here is Jenny Spring \u2014 do gooder, choir nerd, mom, and Girl Scout troop leader, listening to one of her old punk rock songs for the first time in a dozen years.\u00a0Jenny:<\/strong> It\u2019s kind of violent. Oh my god. So, it was, uh, I\u2019m tired of your s I\u2019m tired of your s And I don\u2019t care if you cry. You better quit before I sock you in the eye. Ha ha ha.<\/p>\n \u201cAn Arm and a Leg\u201d is a co-production of KFF Health News and Public Road Productions.<\/p>\n To keep in touch with \u201cAn Arm and a Leg,\u201d\u00a0subscribe to its newsletters<\/a>. You can also\u00a0follow the show on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the social platform X<\/a>. And if you\u2019ve got stories to tell about the health care system, the producers\u00a0would love to hear from you<\/a>.<\/p>\n To hear all KFF Health News podcasts, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n And subscribe to \u201cAn Arm and a Leg\u201d on Spotify<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Pocket Casts<\/a>, or wherever you listen to podcasts.<\/em><\/p>\n KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t@danweissmann\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n\n\t\tCredits\t<\/h3>\n
\n\tProducer<\/p>\n
\n\tAudio wizard<\/p>\n
\n\tEditor<\/p>\n
\n\tEditor<\/p>\nUSE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n