Austin City Council honors student who helped erase $6.3 million in local medical debt

Austin City Council on Feb. 11 recognized high school student Eli Yorio for leading the “26 for 26” campaign that community partners leveraged to abolish millions in local medical debts and proclaimed the date as “26 for 26 Undue Medical Day.” Councilmember Vanessa Fuentes (District 2) read the proclamation on behalf of the mayor and the council.

The proclamation and remarks centered on the scale of medical debt in Texas and locally. “Dealing with medical debt is something nobody should have to face, not in the richest country on Earth,” Councilmember Vanessa Fuentes said, citing statewide and regional figures and praising the work of Undue Medical Debt. Fuentes said the nonprofit—founded in 2014—uses a model in which “on average $1 donated erases $100 of medical debt.”

Courtney Wurpi Story, vice president of government initiatives at Undue Medical Debt, said Eli set a goal of raising $26,000 by graduation in 2023 and has surpassed that target: “He has raised over $33,300 to date. Those funds were used to abolish $6,300,000 in medical debt for 5,688 people in Travis County,” she said. Councilmember Mark Duchin praised the student’s work as “truly life changing for families,” and described how insufficient insurance can expose people to enormous costs.

Eli Yorio accepted the recognition and thanked the council, his family and community supporters. “I never thought whenever I started this 4 years ago that I would be standing here,” Yorio said. He told the council he hopes the city and Undue Medical Debt can forge a partnership to continue the work.

Dr. Jeff Yurio, introduced as Eli’s father, described seeing patients forced to choose between expensive drugs or tests and urged that work to address medical debt continue in Austin. The council concluded the brief ceremony with a group photograph.

The proclamation noted national and local figures read into the record: more than 100,000,000 people in the U.S. have past or unpaid medical debt and an estimated total exceeding $220,000,000,000 (figures cited by the council), and Fuentes said in Central Texas roughly one in five families has medical bills in collections. The council read the proclamation on the floor; no formal vote was recorded in the transcript.

Next steps were not set in the meeting record beyond expressions of interest in exploring partnerships with the county and philanthropic organizations to expand local support for medical-debt abolition efforts.