UFC announced a $250,000 donation to the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt on Thursday, an infusion of cash the organization says will help eliminate more than $53.4 million in medical debt for over 39,000 people nationwide. The effort is expected to reach more than 33,000 veterans living across 27 states and Puerto Rico, with veteran-specific debt that cannot be confirmed getting extra attention in Texas and Florida.
The donation came through the UFC Foundation, according to UFC.com, which reported the announcement alongside comments from UFC President and CEO Dana White, who said the promotion is proud to partner with Undue Medical Debt to help eliminate veterans' medical bills. Texas and Florida were singled out for the unconfirmed portion of veteran debt relief in part because the two states have some of the nation's largest veteran populations, per the same announcement.
Undue Medical Debt CEO and President Allison Sesso said medical debt affects more than 100 million people in the country and thanked UFC for its donation. She said the effort highlights service members who may return home with physical and psychological scars, and that she hopes the letters sent to recipients remind veterans they are valued and deserve care without fear of financial ruin.
How Undue Medical Debt Turns Donations Into Relief
Undue Medical Debt, founded in 2014, buys qualifying medical debts in bulk for a very low price — often a penny or less on the dollar — from healthcare providers and collection agencies, using donations from partners like UFC to fund the purchases. The nonprofit says one dollar donated to the organization erases, on average, $100 of medical debt. Undue says it operates in all 50 states and never collects on the debt it purchases, only relieves it.
To identify veterans eligible for this round of relief, Undue says it identified and acquired a unique bundle of eligible veteran accounts from non-VA healthcare providers, cross-referencing publicly available federal military personnel data to find veteran-specific debt. The organization typically does not identify whether debt is veteran-specific, which is why the non-confirmed portion of relief is being concentrated in Texas and Florida. The nonprofit says it will send branded debt-relief notification envelopes in the coming days, with letters notifying recipients that some or all of their medical debt has been erased, and it will remove any negative credit marks tied to that debt.
Individuals cannot request relief directly — Undue says it can only relieve debts it is able to acquire from a partner such as a hospital, and eligibility is determined by household income and the financial burden of outstanding medical debt. According to the nonprofit's published criteria, a person may qualify if household annual income is at or below four times the federal poverty level, or if outstanding medical debt represents 5% or more of annual household income.
A Growing List of Debt-Relief Campaigns Tied to Veterans
UFC's gift lands amid a broader wave of veteran-focused debt relief efforts timed around Veterans Day. Born Primitive and Black Rifle Coffee Company pledged all of their online profits from Nov. 6 through Veterans Day toward medical debt relief for an estimated 20,000 veterans and first responders, according to Fox News. That outlet reported that the Born Primitive initiative, per former Navy SEAL Bear Handlon, had already erased more than $50 million in medical bills for over 25,000 veterans since 2024.
Professional sports leagues have run similar campaigns. The NHL, the Buffalo Sabres and the Vegas Golden Knights together helped erase $1.5 million in debt for more than 600 U.S. veterans and their families through a partnership with ForgiveCo, according to NHL.com. The league says it and its teams have forgiven $3.75 million in debt for more than 2,100 veterans and their families overall through a program called Operation Line Shift.
States Are Getting Into the Debt-Relief Business Too
State governments have also funneled money through Undue Medical Debt. Illinois provided the nonprofit $10 million, which Undue used to provide more than $1.1 billion in medical debt relief for state residents, as reported by The Guardian. Kentucky's governor similarly announced in September that the state would spend $2.5 million to cancel medical debt for 130,000 people, according to WSIU.
The scale of the underlying problem helps explain why these campaigns keep multiplying. The Guardian cited a 2024 estimate that people in the United States owed at least $220 billion in medical debt, with 21% of U.S. households carrying a past-due medical bill that year. Undue Medical Debt's own account of its track record varies by source: the UFC announcement states the nonprofit has erased over $53 billion of medical debt since its 2014 founding, while Undue's own homepage separately states the figure at $6.7 billion — a discrepancy that remains unresolved between the two sources.
