Image: Getty 
 
 Judith Jones and Carolyn Kenyon are two New Yorkers who are passionate about the New York Health Act, a bill that would bring universal health care to the state. Jones and Kenyon are 80 and 70 years old, respectively, but according to the New York Times, they didn’t want to just wait around for that to happen—so they rallied their friends and neighbors and raised $12,500 for the non-profit R.I.P. Medical Debt. 
 
 R.I.P. Medical Debt buys up people’s old medical bills and forgives them. With Jones and Kenyon’s donation, the organization bought up $1.5 million in medical debts, belonging to thousands of people in need across New York. The non-profit focuses on alleviating the debts of those who really cannot afford to pay their bills, like those who earn less than two times the federal poverty level. 
 
 Coolest of all is that Jones and Kenyon did not just convince people to throw in some money, but tried to educate them on how medical debt can take over people’s lives. “We tried to get people interested in the seriousness of medical debt,” Jones said, “and lead them to understand that when the New York Health Act passes, that will be the end of medical debt because everyone will be covered.” 
 
 Here, here. And while R.I.P. Medical Debt can’t make it so that people don’t have disgustingly high hospital bills to begin with, it’s nice to see two sensible ladies take up the issue in their community and have an effect on 1,284 New Yorkers’ lives. The bar for being that bitch has just been raised. 

 After realizing the crushing impact medical debts were having on millions of Americans, the men decided to flip their mind-set. They began purchasing portfolios of old debts to clear them as a public service, rather than try to hound the debtors. 
 
 “I like doing this much more than I liked doing collecting,” Mr. Antico said. 
 
 R.I.P. Medical Debt had its first star turn in 2016, when John Oliver did a segment on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight,” in which he paid $60,000 to forgive $14.9 million in medical debts through the charity. About 9,000 people received the yellow forgiveness envelopes as a result. 
 
 Since then, other high-profile efforts to forgive debts through the charity include fund-raisers sponsored by NBC and Telemundo affiliates. 
 
 In all, the organization says its donations have forgiven $434 million in medical debt so far, assisting some 250,000 people. That remains only a fraction, though, of the more than $750 billion in past-due medical debt that it says Americans owe. 
 
 “It is a drop in the bucket,” Mr. Antico said. 
 
 R.I.P. Medical Debt specifically seeks to buy the debts of people who earn less than two times the federal poverty level, those in financial hardship and people facing insolvency. 
 
 It purchases the portfolios at a steep discount, a penny or less on the dollar. These bills have typically passed through several collection agencies and months or years of collections. The people, who do not know they have been selected, receive the debt relief as a tax-free gift, and it comes off their credit reports. 
 
 Mr. Antico said he thought of his charity as a “resolutionary, not a revolutionary” effort, one that offers people relief, but that cannot solve underlying issues like high medical costs. Through personal data associated with the debt accounts, they are able to target specific classes of people, such as veterans, to relieve their debts. 

 The actual amount of medical debt outstanding nationwide is much higher than the reported $75 billion on credit reports. Less than 10 percent of medical debt each year is reported to the credit reporting agencies. It is estimated by RIP that approximately $1 trillion is owed by Americans, accumulated over the last 8-10 years. 
 
 Source: Ratcliffe, McKernan, Lou, Hassani, and Quakenbush. 2017. "Debt in America: An Interactive Dashboard." Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Tabulations of data from a major credit bureau (2016) and the American Community Survey (2015). Tabulations of aggregated medical debt data from TransUnion (2017).
– Some 1,284 people in New York state are getting some good news this holiday season—courtesy of two complete strangers. Ithaca residents Judith Jones, 80, and Carolyn Kenyon, 70, raised $12,500 over the summer and gave it to the RIP Medical Debt charity, which used it to forgive an amazing $1.5 million in medical debt, reports the New York Times. The charity—started in 2014 by former debt collection execs Craig Antico and Jerry Ashton—was able to buy up the overdue debt for less than a penny on the dollar, which is something more typically done by debt collectors who then hound the debtors for the money. The people whose debt was bought up will receive a slim yellow envelope with a letter telling them their debt has been forgiven. Jones and Kenyon are campaigners for universal health coverage and while fundraising for the debt forgiveness fund, they explained how medical debt can wreck lives and stressed that it was part of a bigger problem caused by health care costs, Jezebel reports. Antico says he and Ashton founded the charity after realizing the impact medical debt had on so many lives. "I like doing this much more than I liked doing collecting," he tells the Times. "The random act of kindness is kind of a cool thing." As for how they're doing, they say they've been able to erase $434 million in past-due medical debt so far ... though America's total tab is $750 billion. (John Oliver gleefully forgave $15 million in medical debt on his show in 2016.)