Craig Antico is wiping out $1B worth of medical debt!

Craig Antico, once the guy collecting your medical debt, is now the one erasing it. Hear his story, plus an exciting announcement from our parent organization, Faith Commons!

Listen here, read the transcript below, or click here for the full video version.

George Mason:
Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith and public life. I'm your host, George Mason. And I am thrilled to begin a new series on poverty, the first episode of which we begin with our guest, Craig Antico. Craig is the founder, co-founder, of RIP Medical Debt. And he has been responsible for just retiring more than $1 billion worth of personal medical debt through this nonprofit. And it's an exciting announcement that we have to make today. First of all, Craig, welcome to Good God. We're glad to have you.

Craig Antico:
Thank you, Reverend.

George Mason:
Well, here's the announcement. So, the parent organization of Good God is called Faith Commons, and because of a generous gift to our nonprofit, we were able to contact RIP Medical Debt and cooperate with them in a process of retiring debt in Dallas County. The good news is that we were able to retire personal medical debt for 1,657 persons. And that amount totaled more than $4,200,000. Average for each family unit retiring, more than $2,500 worth of debt. Craig, what an incredible relief that is to people that they get that word. So, tell us about the process whereby all of this happens.

Craig Antico:
Sure. What we do, and the funny thing is we, my co-founder and I, Jerry, we come from the collection industry, and half of all collections in this country are medical. And the amount of hardship that's being put on people is extraordinary. So when we started it, we thought getting to $1 billion would be an incredible accomplishment. We started this company in 2014. And the way that we do it is we go to hospitals, medical groups, and even the investors that buy debt from hospitals, mostly from hospitals. They actually can buy this debt for a lot less than what the billing went out for.

Craig Antico:
What it depends on is how much a collection company, or a debt buyer they call them, thinks that they can actually collect, which determines how much they're going to pay. So, let's say there's $100 million of medical debt that a hospital is owed. And this collection company forecasts that they're going to collect $15 million on that $100 million. They'll end up paying about one third of that. They'll pay $5 million for that $100 million.

Craig Antico:
Now, being we were in that business, we knew that after a couple of years, maybe three years, most of the money of that $15 million that they're going to collect has been collected. Well, what about all the people? It might be 80% of that portfolio that can't pay and never will be able to pay. Well, what are they going to do with those accounts? Guess what? They're going to sit on their credit report for the next three, four years and waiting, just waiting for some positive thing to happen. Well, a lot of times, it doesn't happen. It's only a negative burden on the people.

Craig Antico:
But we came to the debt buyers and said, "Why don't you sell those accounts to us for a lot less than what you paid? Maybe, we'll pay 1% or we'll pay a half of a percent. And at least get that off of their credit report and stop them from worrying if they're going to get a call from a collection company." So, we did that, and the debt buyers were willing to sell it to us. Even though many of them were not allowed to resell it, we convinced them.

Craig Antico:
What we do is when we buy this account, we wipe it out, and contractually, we can not collect on it. We can not sell it to another company. Our whole purpose is to abolish the debt. It's like a Jubilee. In biblical terms, you are actually wiping out someone's, the amount of debt that they owe. And in biblical times, it was even freeing slaves, which is kind of ironic because this is like a slave. You're a debt slave. So, we're actually bringing them back to whole, at least on this one account. So, that's how we do it.

George Mason:
That is a remarkable story. And I don't think people fully appreciate, if they never been in debt, the kind of burden people carry around with them constantly, the sense of foreboding, the feeling that they can't advance. They can't get a car loan maybe. They can't buy a house. Their credit is diminished. They're waiting for the phone to ring or somebody to knock on the door. And it's, really, as you say, a kind of enslavement, a kind of burden that people carry, and the whole concept of people of faith out of a biblical religion is to relieve the burdens of the poor, right, so.

Craig Antico:
Yeah. We find that there's two groups of people mostly that we're helping. One is the impoverished. So, poverty is a qualification. And we even believe that two times the federal poverty level and below is poverty. You'll talk about what poverty means, and we've defined it very broadly. It's very similar to what a hospital will have. Most people don't even know that if you make less than two times the poverty level, and you can look it up on Google, they have calculators to tell you what level of poverty you are at, anybody that's two times the poverty level and less gets charity care, which is free care. Most people do not know that. A third of all the accounts that we use to buy as a debt collector or a debt buyer qualified for charity care, and they didn't get it. They needed to apply for it unfortunately. That's one of the big issues.

Craig Antico:
In our book, and we're updating our book right now, End Medical Debt, we talk about hardship and material hardship. Now, a lot of those in poverty already have hardship. They already know what it's like to have hardship. But there's people that are making three times the poverty level, four times the poverty level that are now having hardship or material hardship. I talk about hardship as you can't pay your utility bill, or you can't put tires on the car when they go bad, or you choose not to go and get that prescription filled, or do that follow-up visit because you owe money, or you're worried about the cost. For example, cancer patients are paying 10, 15, 20, 30% of their gross income for the treatment of cancer. And I've heard people saying, "I am not going to even go and get treatment because I'm just going to put my family into such harm's way with debt," so they're choosing death over debt. And it's just extraordinarily sad that we have this happening right now, that you have to choose health or financial health, and it's...

George Mason:
So, Craig, I learned about you not through the same means that a lot of people have, which by the way, was the comedian John Oliver, who did a whole series of programs and worked to retire, what was it, something like $14 million worth of debt or so?

Craig Antico:
Yeah, just about $15 million for about 9,000 families in Texas. Actually, it was all in Texas.

George Mason:
That's fascinating. Well.

Craig Antico:
Much of it was in Dallas actually. [crosstalk 00:08:35]

George Mason:
Well, there you go. Well, and it keeps on accumulating. Even after we have done our part, the amount of debt in Dallas County is back up again. And this is just an ongoing problem that needs to be addressed. But I learned about it from a colleague in Brooklyn. My dear friend Gary Simpson is the senior minister of the Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn. And their church foundation worked with you and retired all the debt in Kings County and even into, I think, parts of New Jersey. And they were really excited about that. And he said, "Okay, I'm going to tell you how to do this," and so we were able to be in touch.

Craig Antico:
It's so exciting. And you not only get the church because it's a federated fundraising, meaning you as the church and some family foundations are coming together, and it's supporting the congregation. And then the congregation gets so excited. I visited churches in Carrollton, in Dallas that have done this before. And one of the pastors said that it was the most important thing they did all year, which is shocking to me. But it just generated such enthusiasm and support.

Craig Antico:
And then it multiplies after the church does this. Just like you, you talk to somebody in Brooklyn. You talk to somebody here. All of a sudden, the whole region starts to do this. Appalachia was another area. We have regions that we help. And we know that poverty is one of the biggest issues in Appalachia. And so, people have donated $1 million to abolish debt in that region. We need more of this. We need more communities to come together. And I know Faith Commons is actually a church that brings multiple denominations together, which is really what we're all about. It's not just... It's the kingdom. It's not just-

George Mason:
That's right. That's right. And Faith Commons is actually also interfaith and multi-faith. So, it's all of us working together, Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and people of all faith because we all have this deep, fundamental unity around the idea that we should be at work to promote the common good and to do so from the starting point at the least of these, that those who have the most burdens on them, it is up to us to help relieve that. And so, yeah, that's part of our calling. And I think for people who are watching this or listening to it, they're probably wondering, "Well, that's really exciting. You retired more than $4 million worth of personal debt, medical debt. How much did that cost?" And in our case, it was what, 30, $35,000, right?

Craig Antico:
Right.

George Mason:
Which is remarkable.

Craig Antico:
Yeah. It's interesting. We used to average it so that every single faith-based organization or a family foundation or a person that donated a dollar achieved $100 worth of a forgiveness, right? Well, now, we're realizing, well, sometimes, the debt just costs less. Sometimes, it costs more. We pay five and a half percent for some debt because that debt happens to be younger debt. Might be a year old instead of three, four, five, six years old. And we've got to decide. We're doing research, randomized controlled trials with four major universities, MIT, University of Chicago, UCLA, UC Berkeley, to find out, where is that sweet spot of impact? So, it might've cost you $100,000 to do that $4 million worth of debt if we started to buy more recent debt. So, we're trying to find out with evidence what makes the biggest impact. And then we're going to tell our donors, "This is where you should put your money. I know you like to get 100 to one, or in your case, 130 to one, on your money, but let's put it where the most impact is made." And that's what we're trying to ascertain. We know that it makes a difference, but does it make that much of difference that we're abolishing older debt or less costly debt?

George Mason:
So, Craig, this is a new dimension for you to get more into the analytics of the nature of the debt and that sort of thing. But I also wonder, as you think about the next iterations of this, you're working on the back end, you might say, of all of this debt. And I love what your co-founding partner Jerry said is that you sort of moved from the world of collections, which had a predatory feel to it, to being predatory givers, which I think is a beautiful phrase. But what's your take on how we prevent this kind of debt incursion? We're working to eradicate debt on the back end, but isn't it much better to not incur it to begin with, right?

Craig Antico:
It is. I mean, I could talk personally about it and tell you my beliefs about it. I could talk with you about it from an RIP perspective. I'll talk about it from an RIP perspective. We're more of a resolutionary product or service, where we're completing something or we're putting it to bed, so to speak. Revolutionary is more like what we need in this country. We could become revolutionary if we raised about $2 billion a year. Now, that's going to take a while for us to get to that.

Craig Antico:
In the meantime, how can we help hospitals identify the people that are in most need now? I talked about a little bit before how 30% of all the accounts that are placed for collection in this country and sold are people that qualified for charity care. That's a safety net for the impoverished in this country. Now, one third of the population makes less than two times the poverty level, including children. That right there, if we provided either free care or we abolish debt on the back end of... Because a lot of people can pay. Believe me, a lot of people are in position, even if they're impoverished, to pay their bill. And they want to pay this. There's a stigma when you don't pay even if you're in poverty or two times the poverty level and below. So, people do want to pay. It's, do we need for them to go into hardship by paying? That's the biggest key.

Craig Antico:
And we found in research that when you spend about two and a half to 3% of your gross income on medical out-of-pocket expense or the debt that you incurred from other out of pocket, you go into hardship. You get into the five and 10%, you're now into material hardship. You can't pay your rent. You're going to get evicted. Maybe, you'll be homeless. These are things that we can't accept for anybody in this country to have happen. So, we can use data. We can use data to identify the people that need it, just like we do.

Craig Antico:
Now, most hospitals only allow this kind of a charity care if you make an application. Personally, I think what should happen is it should be given to you as a liberty or a right that you get to have this care, regardless of your ability to pay. And you don't have to apply for it. And that can be done using data. We use it. That's how we do our work. Right now, we call it an opt in process. If we did it as an opt out process... Because not everybody wants to have charity. I can do it. I don't want help. I'm going to be okay. Self-reliance, I'm not depending on the whole, the commons.

Craig Antico:
I think what can happen is we could eradicate, and this is an amazing stat here, there's about $1 trillion of medical debt that's accumulated over the last seven to 10 years. Most of that debt would be wiped out. I mean, if we have our way, we'd abolish all the debt five years and older. There's no reason for that to be. That's probably $500 billion of debt. And we could wipe that out and take it off of the backs and the minds of our people. We can't have that be there because it's even a social determinant of health, this debt. It's a scary thing. It determines your wellness. We're researching that too to see what is being affected.

George Mason:
So, we've been talking about the spiritual character of this material work that you are doing and the motivation that you draw upon. And you've mentioned the biblical concept of the Jubilee and debt forgiveness and release of slaves. Even in the so-called Lord's prayer that the Lord taught us to pray, we pray, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," right? So, this is interesting that I think most people think of forgiveness having to do with sins that are personal, one to another, or against God. But the language of debt is right there. So, it becomes a metaphor, doesn't it, that comes out of the economic sphere. And we use the language of forgiveness that allows people freedom. I know that the Greek word for forgiveness means literally to let go, to let it go. And so when you retire this debt, when these people get letters from you that says it's been taken care, someone has stepped in and helped to forgive your debt and abolish it. That's a powerful, spiritual metaphor, isn't it?

Craig Antico:
It is. And people will cry.

George Mason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Craig Antico:
It came to that. A lot of times, last year, we abolished about $500 million through faith-based organizations' gifts. That's going to be over $1 billion this year. And it's a testament to the impact that this has. I mean, we know how we would feel. Although, we haven't gotten a letter like that. Most people never get an unasked for gift. Although, they've been asking for it for a long time in their prayers to get rid of it. We have gotten letters from people after they get this yellow envelope and open it. They just can't even believe that there was a church, a faith-based organization, or just a person out there that cared enough for them to forgive this debt.

Craig Antico:
And we don't want them to think of it that they did anything wrong. Usually, you're right. It seems like a forgiveness is, I did something wrong. Well, you did nothing wrong. You got ill. How is that wrong? And you couldn't pay. Well, heck, that happens. That happens, right? So now, let's move on. You shouldn't worry about it even if you can't pay it because it's going to be all right if you have faith. But it's nice to know that it's no longer there. It is. It is.

George Mason:
Well, Craig, as we wrap up, I think it would be important for people who are excited by this idea to know where to go and what to do if they want to participate in this remarkable venture that you have going. So, tell them how to get to you and what's involved and where they should go.

Craig Antico:
Sure. Our website is probably the best place to go. It's www.rip, like rest in peace, R-I-P, or RIP, medical debt, D-E-B-t.org. And you can decide where your money will go. Reverend George said that, what is the future of this? What can we do further on as we go? Well, we're not only going to be doing geography based help, but we can abolish debt of first responders [crosstalk 00:22:19]

George Mason:
Oh, my.

Craig Antico:
... helping COVID heroes. So, the first responders or even the occupations like waitresses and bartenders and just people that have been impacted or serve you every day in the face of harm. We abolish debt for them. We've raised over $1 million just to help them. And that's going to abolish over $150 million of debt. So, we're starting to do that. We'll eventually do by ailment, cancer, heart, and then by just, you might want to target people that are, let's say, homeless. Or you might want to target people that are insecure financially but maybe even food insecure. Or you might want to target certain demographics of people like certain age. For example, 27 year olds have the most debt on their credit report than any other group.

George Mason:
Wow.

Craig Antico:
You don't know this kind of stuff until you start getting educated. And that's the first step, get educated. Before you even donate to us, get educated, find out if this is something you'd like to do, and then realize that $1 is going to abolish $100. $10 abolishes a $1,000. And $100 abolishes $10,000. So, that's pretty extraordinary.

George Mason:
That's really great. Craig Antico, we're so grateful for the work that you're doing, you and your company. And we believe it's a spiritual work and that it is actually providing some Jubilee, both in the biblical sense and also in the sense of just joy to people because of all you're about. So, thank you for being on Good God and for the partnership with Faith Commons. We're excited about it, and we're grateful.

Craig Antico:
You're welcome. And I'm grateful for you too and your congregation. And thank you so much for having me on the show.

George Mason:
You're welcome. God bless you. Bye-bye.

Craig Antico:
God bless you too. Bye-bye.

George Mason:
Thank you for tuning into Good God. We're grateful to provide this for you during this time of COVID-19 isolation. And we hope that it is a consolation to you during this time. There have to be lots of ways that we reach each other. And even though we can't be in a studio as we normally are producing these, we're finding the technology, using Zoom, and communicating it to you through this programming. We hope that you'll find it to be encouraging to you as we make our way through these difficult days.

Speaker 3:
Good God is created by Dr. George Mason. Produced and directed by Jim White. Social media coordination by Cameron Vickrey. Good God, conversations with George Mason, is the podcast devoted to bringing you ideas about God and faith and the common good. All material copyright 2020 by Faith Commons.