News items.
Washington Post analyst Andrew Van Dam, in an article on regional debt scores, reports that serious medical debt is concentrated in the South and Appalachian regions. This coincides with maps of lower credit scores — and also a lack of non-profit medical systems reported in another article on May 15. The area generally matches the CDC’s “Diabetes Belt” as well. Graphic ©WashPo.
Read the article (scroll down to find section one medical debt):
May 12, 2023 – NPR reports that there is a high amount of medical debt in collection in the counties that the CDC identifies as “the Diabetes Belt.” In many counties, 1 in 5 families have unpayable medical debt in collection.
Read or Listen to the Story:
Many in the ‘Diabetes Belt’ plagued with medical debt
Yes, the Debt Jubilee Project went viral on April 12-13 – no kidding! We were viral on Twitter, TikTok, and Reddit, where the story from WXII-12 was posted and reposted.
TikTok – 13.5 Million views
Twitter – 28.8 Million views
Reddit – Top Favorites page on 4/12, 3,300 comments.
As a result, we were mentioned on the syndicated radio programs the Bobby Bones Show and the Glenn Beck Show.
Listen to Glenn Beck Show – begins at 13:40
Listen to Bobby Bones Show – begins at 50:30
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
Kaiser Health News reports that many hospitals are now working hand-in-hand with private financing to make it “easy” to pay for medical services — at a high interest rate and large profit.
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:
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
An analysis by the North Carolina State Health Plan and the National Academy for State Health Policy found that taxpayer-funded COVID relief gave a huge wealth transfer to North Carolina’s seven dominant hospital systems. While patients and rural hospitals suffered, wealthy hospital systems enjoyed record profits and a $7.1 billion growth in cash and investments during the pandemic.
Click here to read the article and download the study:
https://www.shpnc.org/what-the-health/nc-hospitals-profit-during-covid
Featured image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
A recent investigation by Kaiser Health News and NPR reveals that 100 million Americans have significant medical debt. This is far more pervasive than previously reported.
“Debt is no longer just a bug in our system. It is one of the main products,” said Dr. Rishi Manchanda, who has worked with low-income patients in California for more than a decade and served on the board of the nonprofit RIP Medical Debt. “We have a health care system almost perfectly designed to create debt.”
https://khn.org/news/article/diagnosis-debt-investigation-100-million-americans-hidden-medical-debt/
Featured photo from Pexels/Pavel Danilyuk
