Medical Debt

On Sunday, March 26, we will symbolically burn a list of $3.3 million in medical debts for families in Davidson, Davie, and Yadkin counties.  The Debt Jubilee Project has bid and purchased the medical debts of 3,355 area families so that we could forgive the debt.

During the 11 am service, we will have a ceremony where we burn the listings of the purchased debts, which have already been wiped clean.  Families have received official letters in the mail indicating that their owed medical debt has been forgiven, and can no longer be collected.  The service is open to all, as we celebrate this radical act of God’s Jubilee.

The idea is based on the Biblical Year of Jubilee, described in Leviticus 25, where all debts are forgiven and slaves are freed.  We believe that our society needs Jubilee, and we are doing what we can to make it happen.

11:00 am
March 26, 2023
Trinity Moravian Church
220 East Sprague Street
Winston-Salem NC 27127

WXII featured our Davidson county project where we were able to purchase and forgive $3.3 million in medical debt, helping more than 3,000 local families.  Kara Peters did a great job on the story:

WXII Coverage of Debt Jubilee Project

RIP Medical Debt was featured on the October 30 edition of Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien, a nationally syndicated current issues program.  O’Brien interviews the founders and outlines how the program works.  Watch it now online:

Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien – 10/30/22

Debt Jubilee Project officially forgave $1,165,798.61 in medical debt owed by 1,356 individuals in Forsyth and Davidson counties, and symbolically burned the list of debts during a special church service on Sunday, September 25, at Trinity Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, NC.

The campaign was originally planned to raise $5,000 to purchase and forgive approximately $500,000 in uncollected medical debt in Forsyth County.  The campaign was expected to take three months.  However, in less than six weeks, the campaign hit its goal, with most donations being $25 or $50.  When RIP Medical Debt took the cash to the debt broker, they were able to buy a staggering $1.1 million in debts, about equally split between Forsyth and Davidson counties.

In the coming week, 1,356 households will be receiving official notification of the debt forgiveness.

The church board announced on October 2 that the next phase of the program – raising enough money to forgive approximately $4 million in medical debts owed in Davidson county – will commence immediately.  The Project will be seeking partnerships with many area churches to successfully retire the Davidson county debts.  If your church would like to partner with us, more information is here.

The plan is to then move to Davie, Yadkin, Stokes, and Guilford counties in turn.

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Featured photo: June Edwards, Vice-Chair of the Board and Pastor John Jackman burn the list of debts.  Photo by Debbie Jackman

Recent reporting by NPR reveals that in upstate New York,  it is becoming common for nursing home to sue friends and relatives for the care of residents – and this is common in other areas, too.

In New York’s Monroe County, where Rochester is located, 24 federally licensed nursing homes filed 238 debt collection cases from 2018 to 2021 seeking almost $7.6 million, KHN found. Several nursing homes did not file any lawsuits in that period.

The nursing home industry has quietly developed what consumer attorneys and patient advocates say is a pernicious strategy of pursuing family and friends of patients despite federal law that was enacted to protect them from debt collection. “The level of aggression that nursing homes are using to collect unpaid debt is severely increasing,” said Lisa Neeley, a Massachusetts elder law attorney.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/07/28/1113134049/nursing-homes-are-suing-friends-and-family-to-collect-on-patients-bills

Featured image courtesy of Alpha Stock Images – http://alphastockimages.com/

Families are being broadsided by unexpected ambulance bills — often out-of-network and aggressively collected.  NPR reporter Bram Sable-Smith followed up in this story for All Things Considered.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/07/27/1113563630/the-ambulance-chased-one-patient-into-collections

Featured photo from Rodnae Productions/PEXELS