Occupy Debt!

Members of a debt relief project born from the Occupy Wall Street campaign said Wednesday they have purchased more than $100,000 worth of medical debt in a second trial run for their efforts.

Thomas Gokey, a spokesperson for the Rolling Jubilee campaign, said the debt was purchased for $5,000. Earlier this year, the group bought $14,000 worth of debt for $500.

“We are buying debt that is being sold on the secondary market for pennies on the dollar,” Gokey said in a conference call. “We are doing it in exactly the same way that [debt collectors] do it, with one big difference: we are abolishing the debt as we buy it.”

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A fundraising concert is scheduled to be held Thursday in New York City, with the group seeking to raise $50,000 in order to buy — and wipe out — $1 million worth of medical debt.

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[T]he group could not name their allies, nor whom Strike Debt bought the debts from, in order to protect itself from being “blacklisted” by financial institutions.

  Raw Story

Now the auhorities will be feverishly working to find a way to criminalize the act. And the other institutions will be raising their price on medical debt. But, in the meantime....

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