WINK pays off $1M in medical debt for Southwest Floridians; You can help too!

Nearly one in four adults have medical bills in collection in Southwest Florida.

WINK News is launching a project to make what we hope is a multi-million dollar difference to area residents.

Across the country, many people are experiencing “doctor debt.”

Paola Gonzalez knows those calls well. She owes more than $30,000 in medical bills. It’s a debt that she says he affected her entire family.

“I didn’t choose to be sick but I’m trying to keep a job and when I do work its just to pay off medical bills,” Gonzalez said.

In Florida, almost one in four people are in collection for medical bills totaling $6.6 billion.

Just last month, WINK News introduced you to Melissa and Zachary Rizutto, who were trying to raise $125,000 for Zachary’s cancer treatment in Collier County.

“When you have health insurance it doesn’t mean you have health coverage,” Melissa said.

Here in Southwest Florida multiple residents are struggling with millions of dollars in medical bills:

• Collier County: one in five people for $115 million
• Lee County: one in four people for $213 million in medical bills
• Charlotte and other inland counties: $419 million in debt

DONATE: Click here to make a donation of your own

Craig Antico, Co-founder, CEO of RIP Medical Debt, said “we’re predatory givers.”

“We’re going to be able to buy over one million dollars of medical debt in your viewers’ area,” Antico said.

Tracking a huge problem bite by bite in order to buy it and bury it for all the people here at home.

WINK News has been watching how RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit, has worked for people in other places.

“I was just like someone just called me and said they’re going to pay one of my bills,” Gonzalez said.

RIP uses donated money to buy old debt for pennies on the dollar.

WINK News has paid $12,500 to buy the first million dollars in medical debt, and we’re asking you to help raise $10,000 to wipe out a second million dollars for people here at home. $10 wipes out $1,000 in debt. WINK News paid the administrative costs up front, so every penny of the money donated will go towards buying and paying off someone’s bills.

“We’re going to send letters out to each one of them saying that your debt was abolished because of a generous donation,” Antico said.

How does so little pay for so much? Old medical debt is often sold, and if a bill isn’t paid, it can be sold again and again with the the collection letters and phone calls continuing.

“They can collect on it for almost ten years, and we’re trying to stop that long tail of abuse,” Antico said.

RIP works with credit agency TransUnion to pick people based on several criteria, including income, to buy big batches of debt. We don’t know in advance who it will be, but based on criteria, RIP is designed to find some of the worst cases, and several people in the area will get envelopes saying at least some of your medical bills have been paid in full.

“These are the accounts that are poor.. these are the accounts that are insolvent,” Antico said.

Increasingly, accounts held by military veterans as they seek service outside the V.A. and can’t pay the bills. With your help, we’ll have success stories here, like this one from up North.

“We actually had to move out of our old house and come live here because they couldn’t afford me being sick and paying the house,” Gonzalez said.

WINK News is accepting donations through our nonprofit partner, Southwest Florida Community Foundation. You can donate online by clicking here. 

Again, WINK will not get any money from your donation.

CBS New York contributed to this story.