'Sh**’s wild': Scaling up, doubling down, and buckling in

For five years, we’ve been following the work of Dollar For and its founder Jared Walker, watching them quickly scale up their efforts to help people crush medical debt by tapping into “charity care” — the financial assistance that hospitals are legally required to offer some patients.  Their work represents what a small, scrappy, thoughtful group of people can do. Last year, their tiny staff helped wipe out more than $55 million in medical bills.  As we kick off 2026, we thought it was time to check in again. After all, this will be a year when millions more people will have trouble covering their medical bills — when Dollar For’s work may become more important to more people, and when we’re hungry for more ways to help each other.  As Jared tells it, 2025 proved to be a pivotal – yet rocky – period in the organization’s story. Both their successes and their challenges put into stark relief exactly what we’re all up against.  So we go deep with Jared on what they achieved while they weathered the chaos, and what it might mean for their – and our collective – next moves.   Here's a transcript of this episode.  Check out our Starter Pack: How to wipe out your bill with charity care. And our previous coverage of Dollar For: Could billions in medical debt get zapped by the legal strategy from this 60-second video? (2021)We talked to Jared just weeks after Dollar For first went viral. The group’s early history — they’d been working locally for years — is fascinating. Badass volunteers help Jared level up, in the fight to crush medical debt (2021)Within six months, they’d recruited volunteers and built systems.  The Medical Bill “Negotiation Lab” (2022)In an experiment aimed at scaling up impact, Dollar For tried a different approach in 2022. We sat in. One last tip before 2024 (2023)Why Jared thinks you should ask for “charity care” by name -- even though, let’s face it, asking for “charity” does not feel good to most of us. New lessons from the fight for charity care (2024)Dollar For spent 2024 focusing on the big picture and starting to focus on policy advocacy. Check out our history of charity care series (from 2021):  A legendary lawyer sued hospitals for price-gouging their patients. And got his butt handed to him. Dickie Scruggs is the guy who beat Big Tobacco. But when he took on hospitals, he lost. The wild backstory of a tiny but crucial Obamacare provision (ft. David Axelrod)Charity care wasn’t part of federal law until the Affordable Care Act passed. A Republican senator made sure it was part of the ACA — before deciding he wouldn’t vote for the law. “We just kept right on pushing” … and laws changedIn New York, a grieving family’s story made headlines and helped advocates catch lawmakers’ attention. Wait, that was legal until now?!In 2021, Maryland barred hospitals from suing patients who qualified for charity care. Send your stories and questions. Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG. Of course we’d love for you to support this show. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.