RIVERVIEW, Fla -- If you’re a resident of Riverview, Gibsonton or Wimauma, and you get a letter this month saying your medical debt is forgiven, it’s legit!
Pastor Jomo Cousins with Love First Christian Center said his ministry paid the debts through RIP Medical Debt, a company that buys large bundles of medical debt at pennies or less on the dollar and then through donor money, pays off that debt for families.
Cousins said it’s a kindness that was shown to him once before, and one that he wanted to repay.
“I’m a cancer survivor, about five years in January, and there was a season I had huge medical debt and my daughter had a brain condition. She had a huge medical debt and one Christmas I saw, we got a letter saying her debt was canceled,” said Cousins.
That news was a huge sigh of relief for Pastor Jomo Cousins and his family all those years ago.
“I saw that we had the opportunity to cancel someone else’s debt,” said Cousins.
Through research, he found out about a company called RIP Medical Debt, and found out just how much medical debt there was in the entire Riverview area.
“They said there’s about 900-plus thousand in Riverview, about 200,000 in Gibsonton, some in Wimauma,” said Cousins.
And for a relatively low price, Jomo learned he could abolish nearly 1.3-million dollars worth of medical debt.
“For about $12,000 we can abolish all this debt, so about 800 people are going to get a letter stating that their debt is canceled,” said Cousins.
It was the same thing someone had once done for Pastor Jomo Cousins’ family.
“The medical bills, it gets stressful, and I thought if we could find a way to help somebody relieve that stress, it would be a great blessing,” said Cousins.
And through the Love First Christian Center, it was paid back even further.
If you get one of these letters in the mail, no action is needed, the debt is already gone.
