John Oliver buys and forgives $15m worth of medical debt

Watch out, Oprah Winfrey. John Oliver, host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, outdid TV’s biggest gift giver on Sunday when he forgave nearly $15m worth of medical debt on his show.

Oliver’s “giveaway” came at the end of a 20-minute segment on debt collectors. The segment focused on the bad actors in the industry, who buy debt from banks for cents on the dollar. These predatory collectors attempt to recoup the debt they purchased using threats and other aggressive tactics without first verifying the exact details of the debt.

“Once the company has bought your debt, whether the information is accurate or not, they are going to try to collect on it,” Oliver explained on Sunday.

“Debt-buying is a grimy business and badly needs more oversight, because as it stands any idiot can get into it. And I can prove that to you because I am an idiot and we started a debt-buying company,” said Oliver. “And it was disturbingly easy.”

Last Week Tonight spent about $50 to create a debt-acquisition company in Mississippi. The corporation’s name is Central Asset Recovery Professionals Inc – also known as Carp. According to Oliver, soon after its creation, Carp was offered a portfolio of medical debt worth $14,922,261.76 at a cost of “less than half a cent on a dollar, which is less than $60,000”.

In terms of TV giveaways the cost is far less than Oprah Winfrey’s most famous handout. In 2004, she gave all 276 members of her studio audience a Pontiac G6 sedan. “You get a car! You get a car! You get a car! Everybody gets a car!” Winfrey told the audience, at a cost nearly $8m.

But Oliver’s giveaway is likely to have a larger impact on the lives of more people. After the transaction was completed, Carp received a list of names, addresses and social security numbers of nearly 9,000 people who owed that $15m.

“We bought it, which is absolutely terrifying because it means if I wanted to, I could legally have Carp take possession of that list and have employees start calling people, turning their lives upside down over medical debt,” said Oliver.

Instead of collecting the debt, however, Last Week Tonight partnered with RIP Medical Debt charity and decided to forgive that debt.

“Thanks to this 5 June airing of the HBO comedy series, Last Week Tonight show with John Oliver, there are a lot more of us now privy to this collection industry practice and the debt treadmill it creates,” said Craig Antico, co-founder of RIP Medical Debt. “In a painfully hilarious (debt as funny? Somehow, yes) piece, John Oliver triumphantly out-Oprah’s Oprah in giving away valuable gifts.”

As Antico points out this type of debt-buying for charity was pioneered by Rolling Jubilee, an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement. In 2013, Rolling Jubilee spent $400,000 to purchase $14,734,569.87 worth of personal debt – about $13.5m of it was medical debt – before abolishing it.

“No one should have to go into debt or bankruptcy because they get sick,” Laura Hanna, an organizer with the group, said at the time.

A year later, in September 2014, Rolling Jubilee announced that it had bought another $3.8m worth of student debt belonging to more than 2,700 Everest College students. The debt had cost the activists about $100,000.

“The Rolling Jubilee doesn’t actually solve the problem. The Rolling Jubilee is a tactic and a valuable one because it exposes how debt operates,” Thomas Gokey, one of the organizers, said. “It punches a hole through the morality of debt, through this idea that you owe X amount of dollars that the 1% says you owe. In reality, that debt is worth significantly less. The 1% is selling it to each other at bargain-based prices. You don’t actually owe that.”

Rolling Jubilee, which hopes to inspire debtors to get together and exert their collective power, has raised more than $700,000 and abolished $31,982,455.76 worth of debt.