Overview
- The couple made an undisclosed multimillion-dollar donation this spring that enabled Undue Medical Debt to buy and forgive about $550 million in medical bills for roughly 261,000 Californians.
- Undue acquires bundled, often long-unpaid patient debt from hospitals and collection agencies at steep discounts and then cancels it, a process the nonprofit says converts about $10 of donations into $1,000 of erased debt.
- People cannot apply for relief because selection comes from the purchased portfolios; qualifying households are those at or below 400% of the federal poverty level or with medical debt exceeding 5% of income.
- The relief is unevenly distributed across the state, with Southern California counties hit hardest — San Diego County will get roughly $99 million for about 40,369 people and Los Angeles County about $26.7 million for roughly 17,466 people.
- The gift highlights how private giving can deliver fast, targeted relief but critics and analysts warn the debt‑buying model depends on market discounts and does not substitute for federal or state policy changes to fix the underlying health‑care financing problem.