WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. \u2014 Some issues, like immigration or student loans, are too divisive to unite Trinity Moravian Church.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got quite a spread of political beliefs,\u201d said the Rev. John Jackman, who leads this 114-year-old red-brick church near Winston-Salem\u2019s old textile mills. Conservative Republicans sit with liberal Democrats. Supporters of President Donald Trump mix with his fierce critics. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely a purple congregation,\u201d Jackman said.<\/p>\n
But four years ago, when Jackman suggested a new church mission to alleviate medical debt for residents of the wider Winston-Salem area, there was no dissent. \u201cThis is the easiest money I\u2019ve ever raised,\u201d he said. \u201cAll I do is tell people what we\u2019re doing, and they write me a check.\u201d<\/p>\n
Few issues have been more politically explosive in recent years than healthcare, pitting Democrats and Republicans in bitter debates over the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, and other flash points.<\/p>\n
Yet moved by the sense that the medical debts their neighbors faced were deeply unfair, members of Trinity Moravian, no matter their politics, rushed to write $25 or $50 checks to pay off the bills.<\/p>\n
They helped advance a movement by churches across the state and the country and inspired North Carolina government officials<\/a> to tackle medical debt. The effort drew plaudits from conservative radio host Glenn Beck.<\/p>\n The little church\u2019s success also highlighted a patch of common ground in American healthcare \u2014 widespread anxiety and frustration that so many patients are ending up in debt.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Trinity wrapped up its eighth medical debt campaign, part of what the church calls its Debt Jubilee Project. This one raised more than $17,000. That helped retire more than $2.2 million in debt. Medical debt can be bought for pennies on the dollar because creditors believe most debts won\u2019t be paid.<\/p>\n Nationwide, an estimated 100 million adults<\/a> have some form of healthcare debt. More than half of U.S. adults have had such debt at some point.<\/p>\n At Trinity Moravian Church, which has about 200 members, it wasn\u2019t hard to find stories of crushing medical bills.<\/p>\n \u201cI see people going into debt every minute of every day,\u201d said Catherine Coe, who works in the accounting department of a hospital system. \u201cWe\u2019re all just one medical bill from financial ruin.\u201d<\/p>\n Coe grew up coming to Trinity with her grandmother. She drifted away from the church as an adult before rejoining the congregation last year. Coe, who describes herself as a conservative, voted for Trump.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u201cI see people going into debt every minute of every day,\u201d says Catherine Coe. Coe works in the accounting department of a large health system.\t\t\t\t\t\t (Allison Lee Isley for KFF Health News)<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tTerri Mabe used to work in the construction industry and has seen the effects of medical debt up close. \u201cYou get sick. Next thing you know, you owe $5,000, $10,000,\u201d she says.\t\t\t\t\t\t (Allison Lee Isley for KFF Health News)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n Terri Mabe, who\u2019s been coming to Trinity for decades, is on the other side of the nation\u2019s political divide. She said she can\u2019t stand the president, who she said \u201chad no real concern for the people of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n Mabe, 70, has also seen medical debt up close. She used to work in the construction industry.<\/p>\n \u201cIn between projects you are a lot of times without a job,\u201d she said. \u201cThen you get sick. Next thing you know, you owe $5,000, $10,000 that you cannot pay. You\u2019re barely paying your home bills. Then you\u2019re like: \u2018I can\u2019t pay it. What do I do now?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Both Coe and Mabe said partisan differences don\u2019t matter. \u201cThere isn\u2019t a political divide when it comes to medical debt,\u201d Coe said. \u201cIt all brings us together.\u201d<\/p>\n Jackman said he got the idea to do something about medical debt during the pandemic, when growing numbers of people turned to the church for help.<\/p>\n \u201cI was hearing about the reason they couldn\u2019t pay their electric bill was because they\u2019d had a few days in the hospital and then they got hit with this huge bill and it snowballed,\u201d he recalled. \u201cAnd I started hearing this again and again and again.\u201d<\/p>\n Jackman learned about a nonprofit called Undue Medical Debt that buys unpaid medical bills from hospitals and debt collectors so the debts can be retired.<\/p>\n The church\u2019s first campaign, in 2022, set a goal of raising $5,000 to retire about $500,000 in medical debt owed by residents of surrounding Forsyth County. The campaign hit its goal in just six weeks, fueled mostly by donations of less than $50.<\/p>\n Jackman, who\u2019s been a pastor for more than four decades, attributed part of the success to an ethos of the church. \u201cOne of our ideas is that we cannot fix everything, but we have to fix what we can in the place where we\u2019re planted,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Trinity members, no matter their political leanings, also said they see something broken in a system that pushes sick people into debt.<\/p>\n Paul Sluder, 78, who doesn\u2019t identify with a political party, used to work for a credit union. He said he did a lot of debt collecting before he retired.<\/p>\n Paul Sluder says people shouldn\u2019t end up in debt if they get sick. \u201cThe system\u2019s out of whack,\u201d he says. (Allison Lee Isley for KFF Health News)<\/p>\n Most people, he said, wanted to pay what they owed. If they got sick, they often had no choice but to go into debt.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have kind of no control. You have to take care of yourself or your loved ones,\u201d Sluder said. \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly unfair, and I think the system\u2019s out of whack.\u201d<\/p>\n Polls suggest there\u2019s a lot of common ground around medical debt.<\/p>\n In a 2025 survey<\/a> for Undue Medical Debt, more than 75% of Republicans and Democrats said collection agencies shouldn\u2019t be allowed to garnish patients\u2019 wages to pay medical debt. And in recent years, bipartisan measures to expand protections from medical debt have passed<\/a> in blue and red states.<\/p>\n Coe, a Republican, said she would support even more limits on how much medical debt people could be forced to carry. \u201cWhy can\u2019t we cap medical debt at a certain dollar amount, and after that it\u2019s either written off or forgiven?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n After completing the most recent debt campaign, Trinity hosted a special ceremony, assisted by kids from a local Scouting group.<\/p>\n Jackman stood before the congregation and held up a piece of paper with a long list of names, people in the county whose debt had been bought and retired by the church.<\/p>\n \u201cOn this day of Jubilee,\u201d Jackman announced, \u201cwe act to forgive the debts of many of our neighbors as God has forgiven our debts.\u201d<\/p>\n As the congregation stood, Jackman flicked on a lighter and burned the list of 1,631 names. The paper was consumed by yellow flame. The scouts set off confetti poppers. The choir sang, and the congregation erupted in cheers.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tJackman burns a list of names of people in surrounding Forsyth County whose debt was bought and retired by the church.\t\t\t\t\t\t (Allison Lee Isley for KFF Health News)<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tKids from a local Scouting group helped Jackman celebrate as the church marked the end of its latest Debt Jubilee Project campaign to buy up and retire medical debt.\t\t\t\t\t\t (Allison Lee Isley for KFF Health News)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n Afterward, members went downstairs for a spaghetti lunch in the church basement, served by the scouts.<\/p>\n Reflecting on the day\u2019s festivities, many members of the congregation said they hoped their work on medical debt could inspire others to bridge political differences and work together.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s just so much division, so much anger,\u201d said Cynthia Tesh, 72.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to look out for one another,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we start looking out for one another, things will change. If we start considering other people and not just ourselves, things will change.\u201d<\/p>\n Cynthia Tesh says she hopes her congregation\u2019s medical debt campaign can inspire more people to work together. \u201cIf we start looking out for one another, things will change,\u201d she says. (Allison Lee Isley for KFF Health News)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/insurance\/medical-debt-common-ground-church-north-carolina\/”>article<\/a><\/a>; first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org”>KFF<\/a> Health News<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative<\/a> Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2023\/04\/kffhealthnews-icon.png?w=150"<\/a>; style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n
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