"During the summer of 2020, at the onset of the Covid pandemic, the documentary director Matt Nadel was back home in Boca Raton, Florida. He remembers one particular evening walk that he took with his father, Phil, as they weathered out those early months. As they strode through the neighborhood, Nadel, now 26, said that the prospect of a vaccine was exciting, but the idea of pharmaceutical executives profiting off a devastating virus left him feeling uneasy."
"Phil would buy the life insurance policies of people dying of Aids, often with just weeks or months to live, for a portion of the plan's value in cash. For many, it afforded them the ability to pay for food, rent and hospital bills as debilitating illness left them unable to work. For others, it was their chance to blow the funds on travel or experiences with the limited time they had left."
During summer 2020, Matt Nadel returned to Boca Raton and walked with his father Phil while expressing unease about pharmaceutical profits from a pandemic. Phil revealed he had invested in viatical settlements during the early HIV/AIDS epidemic, buying life insurance policies from people with weeks or months to live for a portion of the payout. Those purchases gave many dying people cash for necessities or experiences. Nadel realized his family’s financial benefits were tied to those deals, which unsettled him as a gay filmmaker whose health and freedoms are connected to AIDS activism. He began investigating the history and ethics of viatical settlements.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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