Before dying, she made a fund to cancel others’ medical debt — now $60 million worth

NPR’s Ari Shapiro speaks with Andrew Gregory about his late wife, Casey McIntyre, and the medical debt cancellation fund she set up before she died earlier in November of ovarian cancer.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Casey McIntyre was 38 years old when she died last week from ovarian cancer. After her death, a note she’d written was posted on social media. It started, to my friends, if you’re reading this, I have passed away. The post contained photos of her with her family, her husband, Andrew Gregory, and their 18-month-old daughter, Grace. It continues, to celebrate my life, I’ve arranged to buy up others’ medical debt and then destroy the debt. More than 4 in 10 American households owe medical debt. The nonprofit group RIP Medical Debt is working to reduce that. For every dollar donated, they relieve up to a hundred dollars of medical debt. They buy the debt millions of dollars at a time at a fraction of the original cost. McIntyre included a link to the fund she set up with RIP Medical Debt in her honor, and as of today, it has raised more than $600,000, canceling around $60 million of medical debt. Well, to tell us more about Casey and her debt cancellation campaign, we’re joined by her husband, Andrew Gregory. Andrew, thanks for speaking with us on this Thanksgiving, and I’m sorry for your loss.

ANDREW GREGORY: Thanks. I really appreciate you having me on.

SHAPIRO: Before we talk about the campaign, can you give us a snapshot of what Casey was like? As I was reading her posthumous post, her sense of humor really came through.

GREGORY: Casey was very, very, very funny. She was just a hilarious woman. From our very first date, she was cracking me up, and I was cracking her up. And we never stopped laughing even while, frankly, you know, she was struggling with her diagnosis of stage 4 ovarian cancer for four years. When I look back at that, it’s pretty remarkable.

SHAPIRO: She had good medical insurance. And so this…