The $50 million unrestricted donation will relieve un-payable medical debt, fund research into an underexplored crisis & support upstream, policy solutions 

Queens, NY – December 18, 2024 – Undue Medical Debt is extremely grateful to announce it has received a third, transformative gift from MacKenzie Scott. Undue is the only national nonprofit which leverages donations to purchase and erase medical debts belonging to those least able to pay them. 

The medical debt crisis continues to grow in the U.S.—per the Kaiser Family Foundation there’s an estimated $220 billion of medical debt crushing almost 100 million families. And this estimate doesn’t account for medical debts lingering on credit cards or money borrowed from friends or families. Half of adults report not having $500 on hand for an emergency medical expense. Per the Commonwealth Fund the U.S. spends more on healthcare than any other country, often with worse outcomes for patients. “Compared to peer nations, the U.S. has among the highest number of hospitalizations from preventable causes and the highest rate of avoidable deaths.” 

Undue’s mission is to end medical debt and hopefully one day put itself out of business. Since its founding in 2014, the nonprofit has erased over $14.8 billion of medical debt and continues to increase its capacity to acquire qualifying debt through partnerships with healthcare providers like hospitals seeking to address this social determinant of health. Undue plans to immediately leverage these funds to support its largest medical debt purchase to date and expects to share more in the New Year. Funds will also be used to expand research and policy efforts to understand the pain points associated with medical debt and how best to alleviate them.  

Yet given the sheer scale of the problem, much work remains – especially set against the backdrop of a new federal administration with healthcare priorities that are still coming into focus.  

“I’m frankly astounded by this most recent gift from MacKenzie Scott and feel proud to be a steward of these funds as we continue the essential work of dismantling the yoke of medical debt that’s burdening far too many families in this country,” shares Undue Medical Debt CEO and president, Allison Sesso. “Unrestricted giving, certainly of this magnitude, gives nonprofits room to take risks to tackle modern, complex problems and prove why we are subject matter experts when it comes to the causes we champion. A sincere thank you to MacKenzie Scott and her whole team.”  

The medical debt crisis requires collaboration and creativity. Some of the ways these funds will be leverage beyond debt relief: 

• Further Undue’s policy and research initiatives to tackle the upstream, root causes of medical debt. Learn more here.  

• Allow the nonprofit to build out operational capacity so it can qualify medical debts more quickly and relieve larger amounts of burdensome debt.  

• Fund research into Undue’s model itself to inform how the organization continues to grow, evolve and best meet the needs of its constituents.  

To learn more about MacKenzie Scott’s efforts: https://yieldgiving.com