Strike Debt is working with a debt purchaser to buy distressed medical debt for about five cents on the dollar. Then Strike Debt cancels it, freeing debtors who were unable to pay their medical bills.
Americans owe over $11 trillion in debt. Over $1 trillion of that is student debt. Sixty-two percent of bankruptcies are caused by medical bills, and that figure rose by 50 percent between 2001 and 2007.
The People’s Bailout featured over a dozen performers and speakers — folk singers, rappers, magicians, comedians, Catholic nuns, a professor, a journalist — all of whom appeared for free to help Strike Debt raise money and share the message that debtors are not alone. “Debt is a tie that binds the 99%,” was one frequently-repeated phrase. A large sign on the wall read “you are not a loan.”