GOD INVENTED DEBT RELIEF. CONGRESS INVENTED THE HOLD MUSIC.

VAULT · 03 · DEFEATING THE EPSTEIN CLASS

Published by Langhorne P. Breedlove

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2026 · 1:57 AM ET

Tags: Biblical Jubilee · Medical Debt · Student Loans · Public Education · Debt Relief

Dear fellow American proletariat: A person gets sick, receives treatment, survives, and then discovers that the hospital's billing department has planned a second, more expensive recovery. Another person completes a degree, starts working, and begins paying for an education that may outlast the office furniture. America has managed to make both the pursuit of health and the pursuit of knowledge occasions for long-term collections activity. The lenders, meanwhile, have discovered that patience is a virtue most conveniently practiced by the creditor.

The American Proletariat invokes the biblical Jubilee as a question about debt, dignity, and the limits of perpetual obligation. Could the United States cancel existing medical debt and eligible debt incurred for public education while constructing institutions that prevent those balances from returning? That is not the same as declaring that every ancient text contains a ready-made federal fiscal model. The history is more interesting—and the legal and financial work more demanding—than a sermon with a calculator taped to it.

ROOTS · WHAT DID THE BIBLICAL JUBILEE ACTUALLY SAY?

Leviticus 25 describes a Jubilee in the fiftieth year involving proclaimed liberty, return to ancestral holdings, and particular rules governing land and servitude in ancient Israel. Deuteronomy 15 separately describes a remission or release of debts every seventh year, with conditions attached to the community and relationships described in the text. The fifty-year Jubilee and seven-year debt release are related traditions, not identical instructions or proof that the Bible commanded a modern American government to erase all credit contracts every fifty years. (Sources 01, 02)

The texts arose in legal, social, agricultural, and religious settings far removed from contemporary mortgages, hospital finance, and federal loan portfolios. Interpretations differ among Jewish and Christian scholars and traditions. AP borrows a civic question from these sources—when can accumulated obligations become so enduring that a community must reconsider the rules?—not a claim that the United States is constitutionally obligated to implement a religious law.

HOW WE GOT HERE · TWO VERY DIFFERENT DEBT SYSTEMS

Medical debt commonly arises when a patient is charged for care, an insurer declines or limits payment, cost sharing exceeds available savings, or the patient lacks adequate coverage. Accounts can remain with providers, pass to collection agencies, be sold to purchasers, or be disputed. Some bills are inaccurate or reflect contested coverage, and the amount initially billed may differ substantially from the amount ultimately collected. Canceling a receivable is not the same thing as paying its face value to the provider.

Education debt is structured differently. Federal student loans are government-backed or government-held obligations administered through distinct programs; private education loans are creditor contracts with separate terms. Public universities may receive state appropriations, tuition, federal aid, and other revenue, but a federal student loan does not cease being a debt simply because the school was publicly operated. A Jubilee proposal must distinguish public-school attendance, loan type, original institution, balances, accrued interest, and amounts already repaid.

TODAY · BY THE NUMBERS

A KFF analysis published February 12, 2024 estimated that U.S. adults owed at least $220 billion in medical debt, using data from the 2021 Survey of Income and Program Participation. Approximately 14 million adults owed more than $1,000, and about three million owed more than $10,000. These are survey-based estimates from an earlier reference period, not a live inventory of medical debts on November 9, 2026 or a purchase price for those accounts. (Source 03)

On September 22, 2026, Federal Student Aid reported that its outstanding federal student-loan portfolio exceeded $1.7 trillion across approximately 42.3 million recipients as of June 30, 2026. The federally managed share exceeded $1.64 trillion. These balances include borrowers who attended public and private institutions, undergraduate and graduate programs, and different loan types. The full federal loan portfolio is therefore not a defensible estimate of the amount AP would cancel if relief applied only to eligible public education. (Source 04)

The same federal report recorded more than 9.3 million recipients in default within the federally managed portfolio, associated with approximately $234 billion in loans as of June 2026. Default does not mean every dollar is uncollectible; similarly, an account currently in repayment is not necessarily affordable to the borrower. (Source 04)

Policy has already changed through litigation. In January 2025, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a medical-debt credit-reporting restriction. On July 11, 2025, a federal district court vacated that rule. The CFPB itself now identifies the rule as vacated. Removing a debt from a credit report would not necessarily extinguish the underlying obligation anyway—another distinction between credit reporting and debt cancellation. (Source 05)

WHO DECIDED · WHO HAS THE AUTHORITY TO CANCEL?

Congress determines the principal statutory framework for federal loans, public expenditures, bankruptcy, taxation, and much consumer-credit regulation. The Department of Education and its loan servicers may administer forgiveness and discharge programs within legal authority. Hospitals, local governments, state universities, insurers, collection agencies, and private lenders hold different rights. Federal legislation cannot simply relabel every privately held obligation as a Treasury debt and make the creditor disappear.

In Biden v. Nebraska, decided June 30, 2023, the Supreme Court held that the HEROES Act did not authorize the Education Secretary's broad student-loan cancellation plan. The decision did not hold that Congress can never enact loan forgiveness, nor did it invalidate every narrower statutory discharge program. It illustrates why a nationwide Jubilee would need clear legislative authority, careful drafting, and a defensible financing mechanism rather than a novel interpretation of an unrelated emergency power. (Source 06)

Public Service Loan Forgiveness already provides an example of a limited federal forgiveness pathway: eligible borrowers generally must satisfy qualifying employment and payment requirements, including 120 qualifying payments and other program conditions. That program is neither universal nor a substitute for deciding whether AP would extinguish a different category of debt. (Source 07)

WHAT WOULD A MODERN JUBILEE HAVE TO RESOLVE?

01 · DEFINE THE DEBT

For medical obligations, specify whether eligible debt includes hospital, physician, dental, vision, behavioral-health, ambulance, and other claims, and how to treat disputed or insured charges. For public education, identify qualifying public institutions, periods of attendance, federal versus private financing, graduate and professional study, refinanced debt, and balances arising from private-school transfers. The words 'medical and public education debt' are a mandate for a definition, not the definition itself.

02 · CANCEL THE CORRECT BALANCE WITHOUT REWARDING FRAUD

Require verified borrower identity, debt ownership, original principal, interest, prior payments, collections, insurance adjustments, and existing discharge rights. Build an appeal route for mistaken balances. A debt paid in full should not reappear as eligible simply because records have been sold three times. Borrowers should not have to litigate with a chatbot to prove a charge was already settled.

03 · DECIDE WHO ABSORBS THE LOSS

Forgiving a federally held loan changes a government financial asset and may affect the federal deficit under applicable budget scoring. Purchasing privately held medical receivables, reimbursing hospitals, compensating lenders, or legislating a discharge without full reimbursement entail different costs and legal questions. The unpaid face amount is not always the market value or fiscal cost of cancellation. Private-creditor contract rights, constitutional challenges, and state-law interactions require real analysis.

04 · PREVENT THE NEXT GENERATION OF THE SAME DEBT

If uninsured medical charges continue, canceled balances can be replaced by new ones. If public education remains tuition-financed through loans, graduates may return to debt shortly after a Jubilee. A sustainable package would coordinate with AP's Universal Comprehensive Healthcare and Toddler to Doctor Public Education proposals, including reimbursement, capacity, prices, and public funding. Cancellation without structural reform is a reset button on a machine still producing the same result.

05 · KEEP DEBT RELIEF FROM BECOMING A TAX BILL

The IRS explains that canceled debt is generally included in taxable income unless an applicable exception or exclusion applies. Special federal treatment for many student-loan discharges covered 2021 through 2025, not automatically every discharge occurring in 2026. Federal legislation should therefore specify the tax treatment of any new Jubilee, and legislators must examine state income-tax consequences separately. Trading a debt collector for a tax collector would be a singularly uninspired celebration. (Source 08)

THE MONEY · ONE YEAR AND TEN YEARS

YEAR ONE · ESTIMATE PENDING. Inventory qualifying federal educational loans at the borrower and institution level; estimate eligible medical receivables by ownership, age, amount, type, and collectability; determine legal payment or extinguishment methods; and price verification, appeals, servicing changes, taxes, provider impacts, and public administration. Show the current-law baseline and proposal separately, recognizing that federal credit accounting does not treat every dollar of outstanding principal as an immediate dollar of newly appropriated cash.

YEARS TWO THROUGH TEN · ESTIMATE PENDING. Model annual loan discharges, government financing, interest and servicing changes, new education and healthcare financing needed to prevent reaccumulation, debt-purchase costs, effects on borrowers and providers, and uncertainty. Use low, central, and high scenarios with yearly and cumulative figures. Do not assume a one-time stock of debt is the same as a recurring annual expense, or count reduced collections as both household savings and new Treasury revenue.

An illustration of why definitions matter: if a program purchased $10 billion in qualifying medical debt at an assumed 10 cents on the dollar, purchase expenditure would be $1 billion before operating costs and other settlements. That example is not evidence that all medical debt can be bought for ten cents, nor does it establish the legal authority to impose such a purchase on creditors. Actual prices, availability, enforceability, and negotiated terms would vary.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

A blanket cancellation may provide substantial relief to heavily indebted households but also benefit borrowers with high future earnings or institutions that charged excessive prices. It could create expectations of repeated forgiveness, affect future lending terms, or leave people who already repaid feeling they were treated unequally. Hospitals and public institutions may face cash-flow effects if a legislative scheme extinguishes valid receivables without carefully planned financing. Targeting can improve fiscal precision but produce exclusions, complex applications, and sharp eligibility boundaries.

There is also a serious constitutional and administrative question when government alters private contracts. An enforceable program needs hearings and review, predictable criteria, lawful treatment of creditors, and safeguards against inflated claims. None of those concerns shows that debt relief is necessarily inappropriate. They do show why a slogan borrowed from scripture is not itself a discharge order.

WHY IT MATTERS

Debt can outlive the emergency that created it. A medical charge may affect whether someone seeks follow-up care, and an educational loan may shape decisions about work, family, housing, or additional training. But causal effects must be measured carefully; an outstanding balance does not, by itself, explain every financial decision a household makes.

The modern Jubilee question is whether public institutions should periodically release people from specific obligations, and on what terms, when those obligations undermine access to necessary care or public education. An answer requires the courage to question inherited arrangements and the discipline to identify creditors, legal rights, beneficiaries, offsets, and the source of every public dollar.

The biblical tradition reminds us that a debt ledger need not be the only ledger a society keeps. The American Constitution reminds us that changing it requires law. And the accountant, bless their unromantic heart, reminds us that somebody must reconcile the entries. Let all three attend the meeting.

E pluribus unum, bitches.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

01 · Leviticus 25:8–13 — The fiftieth-year Jubilee, return of property, and proclamation of liberty. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus%2025%3A8-13&version=NRSVUE

02 · Deuteronomy 15:1–2 — Seven-year debt remission, separate from the fiftieth-year Jubilee. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%2015%3A1-2&version=NRSVUE

03 · KFF / Peterson–KFF Health System Tracker — The Burden of Medical Debt in the United States, February 12, 2024. https://www.kff.org/health-costs/the-burden-of-medical-debt-in-the-united-states/

04 · U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid — Quarterly loan portfolio reports through June 30, 2026, announcement September 22, 2026. https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/library/electronic-announcements/2026-09-22/federal-student-aid-posts-updated-reports-fsa-data-center

05 · Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — Medical Debt Reporting Rule, January 7, 2025; vacated July 11, 2025. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/rules-policy/final-rules/prohibition-on-creditors-and-consumer-reporting-agencies-concerning-medical-information-regulation-v/

06 · Supreme Court of the United States — Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. 477 (2023), June 30, 2023. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/22-506

07 · Federal Student Aid — How to Manage Your Public Service Loan Forgiveness Progress, qualifying payments and discharge. https://studentaid.gov/articles/manage-your-pslf-progress/

08 · Internal Revenue Service — Topic No. 431: Canceled Debt—Is It Taxable or Not? https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc431

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WE ARE ONE.  ·  E PLURIBUS UNUM.